My Life as a Robot
by GottaLoveCall
Summary: XJ9's life didn't start the day that Brad broke into her room and dragged her outside. No, it started years before that in a laboratory under a bright light. Yet, everyone seems to forget about the events that lead up to that encounter. A set of cute prequel stories about XJ9 being activated and growing up before the cartoon starts.
1. Chapter 1

She felt strange. Well, she'd never felt anything before, so feeling anything in itself was strange to her. A very light buzz spread throughout her body and little by little it grew stronger and stronger. As the buzz continues to grow so did a strange sound. It was sparky, a word she would learn later, like and sounded as if a lightbulb was flickering too. She started to feel more and more closed in as the feeling and sound went on.

Before that moment it was like she was floating around aimlessly, and only now did she realize that she had been floating. Her dark void of nothing began to shrink and an aching feeling began to take over the strange buzz. The darkness began to turn into a new color as the strain on her grew. Everything hurt and she just wanted it to stop.

Finally, it did, and it took her a second for her mind to realize why the color was different. Her eyes were open and everything around her was a blurry blue mess. She didn't pay much attention to the blurry world though, but rather to her uncomfortable pain. The cooling systems in her chest heaved and pounded away trying to calm the burning motors in her body. All the mechanisms were running for the first time and the sudden jolt of electricity to get them going made them feel sore.

Her 'arms' and 'legs' were incredibly stiff to which she squirmed a bit. That turned out to be a bad decision as the tiny bit of moving she did strained her body even more and tugged at the wires plugged into her. She let out a pathetic whine and regretted that immediately too as now her voice box began to hurt. She didn't like this. No, she didn't like any of this one bit.

Everything in her body was sore and her eyes were starting to hurt from the blurry blue world around her. She wanted it to stop right then. She wanted to go back to mindless floating around in the dark and not feeling anything, but she didn't know how. She closed her eyes and it was dark again, but it just drew her attention to her aching form. So she opened them only for them to somehow burn more looking at the bright color.

She closed her eyes again. Her chest began to feel like it was tightening up on her. Her chest and body were too hot, while she was laying on some hard thing that was too cold. She was stressed, even more, uncomfortable now, and so very overwhelmed at everything. She felt something dripping down her face from her eyes, and her pounding throat let out a shriek. That was the last straw for her. She started to sob and scream as loud as she could hoping that it would all stop. She didn't know how long she cried for but it was far too long for her.

A new muffled sound grew closer and closer to her. She should have paid attention to it, but she was too busy shrieking to care. Clicking sounds and beeps rang out with a hissing sound as something began to slide away. She didn't bother opening her eyes yet, whatever was happening couldn't be good. She was proven wrong a second later.

Something warm was petting her head, and another new sound filled her ears. It was a muffled voice, and she couldn't make out a word of what it was saying. She didn't care. The voice was the nicest thing she'd heard so far, even though she didn't have a lot to compare it to. She decided she like the sound and begrudgingly opened her eyes to see what was making it. The tears didn't stop and weren't seem to be stopping soon, so her eyesight was still blurry.

The world wasn't blue anymore instead of other shades of browns and blacks took their place on the walls and ceiling around her. A bright light still shone down upon her and it was even brighter now that the strange blue covering was gone. Her eyes dilated quickly and she shut her eyes giving up on seeing what the see the comforting thing was. With her eyes closed, she tried to forget about the bright light and focus on the thing rubbing her head.

That didn't last long though as the warmth pulled away and took the nice feeling with it. She wailed as soon as it happened. It was gone. The nice comforting thing was gone and took the nice feeling with it. It wasn't fair. Why did it have to go? She continued to sob as the muffled sound of steps was heard again and grew closer. It was gone, gone forever and she was never going to get it ba-It was back. It was back. The nice thing was back and was rubbing her head again.

She opened her eyes and look up towards where the thing was on her head. A blurry figure slowly began to clear up and take shape. It took her mind a few minutes to render what her eyes were seeing and identify what it was. A person, a lady to be exact, with white hair and goggles on was the source of the rubbing on her head. Her eyes scanned over the person once more and started to pull up information on who the woman was. She ignored it, she'd look at it later, and she stopped crying with a new mission in mind. She couldn't take her eyes off the lady after all.

Clearly, the lady went away because she closed eyes so if she kept them opened than she wouldn't leave again. With this plan locked in her mind, she stared up at the woman with a new feeling, curiosity. She tilted her head a little to the right as she watched her. The lady just chuckled at that and kept rubbing her head. She added the laugh to her list of not wanting to make her cry sounds. Hopefully, it would grow longer soon.

The light above her was noticeably dimmer than it had been earlier and she was grateful for that. The lady must've had something to do with that, and the thought made her feel strangely fuzzy inside. She decided she liked the lady. The lady must have liked her too if she was being so nice to her, and that was another thought that made her let out a little giggle of her own.

Things seemed to finally be calming down. Her motors weren't pounding away anymore and the cooling systems had taken her from being on fire to a nice temperature. Her body was still sore and stiff, plus the thing she was laying on was still too hard and cool, but compared to earlier things were much better.

Although she watched the lady closely the woman stopped rubbing her head and started to move away. She started to feel her chest tightening up painfully as a frown spread across her face. As soon as the lady was out of her sight, and gone forever she started to scream and cry again. The lady came right back and rubbed her head while saying some muffled words. She calmed down almost immediately. She closed her eyes enjoying the attention before snapping them open to make sure she wasn't gone.

No, she was still there. Thinking back on the fact that the lady had left even when her eyes were open, she tried to figure out why the lady kept leaving. She couldn't and it upset her. She probably would've started sobbing once more if something else wouldn't have popped into her mind. It was an interesting idea and based on everything she knew, which granted wasn't much, she decided to test it. She blamed on the curiosity feeling she had.

She stayed calm and smiled at the nice lady's words. The lady did stop petting her head after a while, and she began to move away. It upset her, but she didn't show it. She stayed calm and waited. Once the lady was out of her sight, she waited for a little bit longer. Well until her eyes started to fill with tears and her sore voice box still wanted to scream, then she did.

The lady seemed to suddenly be back and immediately began paying her attention again. She didn't know what the lady's name was. She didn't know what her purpose was, or the fact that it was her 'Birthday' of sorts. She didn't even know that her name was XJ9. She'd learn all of this very soon, but for now, she did know one thing. If she was upset and cried loud enough the lady would come back. That made her very happy.

**Author's Note- Hey, I'm back with a Mlaatr story this time. This tale isn't really like anything else I've ever written before, so I'm just experimenting with it. Thank you for reading! **


	2. Chapter 2

Her first few hours were something of a blur to her as her mechanical mind was working fast and efficiently now. She was grasping concepts at a rapidly fast pace including walking a little. However, most of her attention wasn't drawn to what she could see and make out now, but rather what she couldn't see.

The lady had walked away and opened, what her mind identified as, a door. Through it, she could see another room. It turns out that the room she woke up in, get this, wasn't the only room! She wished she could leave where she had woken up and look around, however, the lady didn't seem to want that. Which was something that she couldn't understand, if the lady didn't want her to explore and see things why did she just spend an hour teaching her how to walk?

Granted it kinda hurt to move around and she wasn't very good at it, but still. What was the point of teaching her how to walk and move from place to place if she wasn't allowed to move from place to place? She let out a huff and crossed her arms. She looked over at the lady, who was now sitting behind another screen and typing away and shot her a pout. The woman's response was to laugh.

This was another sound that she realized she was starting to like quite a bit. Still, watching the woman type and do anything but pay attention to her was starting to get boring. She could cry again and have the lady come over to rub her head and talk nicely to her, but she didn't feel like it. She wasn't sad or scared, and couldn't bring herself to cry. There was no need to really, although she was somewhat bored she was very excited about the world around her.

When she woke up, she was scared and overwhelmed but after having everything settled down, she found herself quite happy. Everything was so strange and new, why wouldn't she want to go around and touch everything. But nooo, the lady wouldn't let her and she found a new emotion growing in her chest. It made her huff more and squirm on the table she was sitting on.

The lady looked up from her screen at her, but she didn't care. She turned away from the lady with a huff. Stupid room, stupid rules. If the lady wasn't gonna pay attention to her or let her explore then she wasn't going to pay any attention to the lady. Or the room for that matter she closed her eyes, she wasn't going to let it have her eyes looking at it. It didn't deserve it.

She could hear the sound of footsteps from the other side of the room and listened to the woman move around. The footsteps grew closer to her, and she could tell the lady was now standing behind her. She still didn't look at the woman though, she was already too stubborn for her own good.

"XJ9."

The lady's word was the first understandable thing that she could make out. It was just so...familiar to her. Where was that word from? What was important about it? The gears span around in her head trying to connect the dots, and it did. The answer popped into her mind and she opened her eyes wide in realization. XJ9, XJ9 was her name. She had a name.

"XJ9."

Despite wanting to look back over at the lady who was saying her name ever so nicely, she didn't. She closed her eyes again and refused to look. She wasn't gonna look at her. Yeah, no matter what happened she wasn't gonna. No siree- A loud squeak filled the air and turned around so fast that she almost fell off the table.

The lady was holding something in her hands. It was a strange-looking creature that was yellow and when the lady squeezed it a loud squeak was heard. Her eyes were as wind as dinner plates as her eyes scanned over it and her mind raced to figure out what it was. Eventually, the animal's name popped into her head. The word **duck** came to her and her mind was starting to race with whatever facts it could find on the internet about ducks.

There wasn't any time for that! She didn't want to read all the words that her mind was bringing up. Why read up on the duck when there was one right in front of her. The woman held the duck out to her and she cautiously reached out to take from her hands. She noticed that the lady's hands were warm while the duck was cold, and now that she thought about it her hands were cold.

Part of her wanted to think about how her hands and body were so similar to the lady, yet she was cold like the duck. That train of thought was immediately lost though when she held the duck in her hands and made it squeak. As her eyes scanned over it, her mind raced and identified it as a rubber duck. **A rubber duck is a toy shaped like a stylized duck and is commonly the color yellow.**

She didn't care whether the duck was rubbery or not, all that mattered was that she had the toy and it could squeak. The squeaking quickly filled the room as she rapidly squeezed the toy again and again. She lost track of time or any other thoughts that didn't relate to the hypnotizing toy. She could've kept playing with it forever, but was snapped out of ducky daze by the lady's voice.

"XJ9."

The woman's voice was stern this time and she suddenly realized that the lady had been talking to her. She didn't know how long the lady had been saying her name, but it was obviously too long. She didn't look too happy with her, and she had crossed her own arms. A sinking feeling built up in her chest as she looked at the lady. She hadn't done anything to deserve the mean look, right?

The woman uncrossed her arms and let out a breath as she reached towards her. She watched the lady's hand and the world started to slow down. It took her a second to realize that she was reaching not to pet her head but for her duck. The sinking feeling grew worse, and her eyes felt strange. The lady was going to take her duckie away, away. Take it away forever! She knew what the feeling was and didn't try to stop it, even though she didn't know how it.

Tears rolled down her face and she started sobbing once more. The woman's hand stopped at where it was at, and she looked startled at the sudden outburst. XJ9 didn't notice, she was too busy crying her eyes out. She waited for the hand to take her duck away and leave her feeling bored once more, it didn't happen. The bad hand instead gently rubbed her head and the voice lost its stern tone. It was nice and soft like how it was when she woke up.

Her sobs turned to sniffles, but she kept a tight grip on her toy. The lady must've noticed it because when she moved her hand away she didn't reach for the duck again. She patted her head one last time, before walking back over to a computer and typing away. She mumbled something, and the only word she recognized was her name XJ9.

XJ9 watched the lady for a minute before slowly looking down at her duck. Thinking to herself, she realized that there was a reason the woman was comforting to her. She hadn't met the lady before, but some part of her mind pulled up a picture of her and had information on her. The woman's name was the first thing listed, and it made sense to her. If she had a name then surely the lady had one too. She looked back at the woman as the name echoed in her head, Noreen Wakeman. Noreen Wakeman was an awfully long name compared to hers. Surely there was something else she could call the lady. Oh well, that was a thought for later, she squeezed the duck in her hands and listen to it squeak. She had more important things to do, the duck wasn't going to make the funny sound if she didn't help it.

**Author's Note- Hey guys, I'm sorry this took so long to update. Things have been a little chaotic in my life, but hopefully, soon I'll be able to get this on a regular update schedule. Anyway, thanks for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

Noreen Wakeman was a long name, too long of a name in her opinion. She liked hers' even more as she thought about it. XJ9, XJ9 it was simple and easy to read over. Noreen Wakeman was not. She didn't understand why the lady's name was so complicated. Surely there was something else she could call her, well besides lady. She was snapped out of the train of thought when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

The woman was giving her a nice smile but looked concerned. The woman must've noticed how she was giving her brain a workout, probably because she had stopped squeaking the duck finally. She smiled back at the lady and the woman returned it. The words were clearer and understandable to her now, with her mind racing to define the words and figure out the sentence.

"Alright, XJ9 everything seems to be working so we're going to run a few quick tests."

Tests? Her mind quickly popped up a definition, a procedure intended to establish the quality, performance, or reliability of something, especially before it is taken into widespread use. She had never heard the word before and didn't know what half of the words in the definition meant, but the test actually made her feel something new. The feeling was unpleasant and squirmy but not as bad as when she cried or was angry. This feeling made her feel bothered and the squirming seemed to spread to her legs and made her want to run off. Her mind registered and saved the feeling, nervousness. XJ9 didn't like this. Why were most of these feelings so unpleasant? The woman pulled out a clipboard and pen.

"Let's begin, shall we. Since this your first test, I'll keep everything simple. You just have to nod yes or no to the questions and complete very simple tasks. Do you understand XJ9?"

Nodding? Nodding she didn't know how-wait she did. It was like something in her brain just snapped into place and she understood it. She knew how to nod, nodding was very simple. She shook her head up and down for yes and side to side for no. Yes was an affirmative response to the question while no was a negative response.

All she-She had to stop her brain from overthinking all of it and over complicating the matter. Now, she had to stop it from questioning how she knew to stop whatever action. Why did sh-Enough? She shook her head up and down as yes. There wasn't any time for questioning all this, she had a test. The nervousness in where her stomach would be grew. The lady's smile grew bigger and wrote something down.

"Wonderful, Do you know what your name is?"

Her name? She slowly shook her head yes. The lady wrote something else down.

"Is your name XJ9?"

Yes, yes it was her name. This test wasn't very hard, and a little bit of her nervousness disappeared. She shook her head yes again. The lady scribbled something down.

"XJ9, Can you touch my hand?"

The lady held her hand out and very carefully XJ9 put her hand on top of hers. The woman then took her hand back and went back to writing on the clipboard.

"Now, Can you hold up two fingers?"

This one took her a little longer to do. Her mind had to figure out what fingers were and then figure out how many she had to hold up. It took a minute but she got it and flashes the lady a peace sign.

"Very good!"

She felt happy at the moment and didn't know why she was so nervous about the test in the first place. It wasn't hard and she was doing amazing. A new feeling of pride came over her and with it, she found herself quite happy.

"One last question and we'll be done."

This one would be as easy as the others no doubt. She would get it right, and maybe the lady would give her something. Maybe she would another duck or a new toy. Heck, maybe for doing so good the woman would let her go see another room.

"Can you say your name?"

She was ready to nod yes when she caught herself and her bubble of pride busted. Was the woman asking her to...talk? Could she talk? She hadn't talked before, heck she hadn't even ever tried to. She guessed she could try now. She opened her mouth and tried to let the flow out of her mouth as smooth and simple as the lady had been doing. No sound came out. Her eyebrows furrowed as she tried again and only exceeded with making some strangled croaking sound. She added that to list of things she didn't like.

The woman laughed a little, and another feeling came over her. Her face felt hot and she couldn't look at the woman. She was...embarrassed. The lady stopped chuckling and rubbed her head. She felt a little better. The lady wrote one last thing down and went over to a screen. She typed away on it, and all XJ9 could do was watch.

She hadn't thought about talking before, and now the thought seemed to consume all of her mind. If she could talk what would she even say? What would her voice sound like? Would it be exactly like the woman's or would it be something new? Did she even want to talk? Well, she guessed it wouldn't matter if she wanted to or not, she'd probably have to learn it. Then she could say her name and the lady's name. She shook her head at that. Noreen Wakeman was too long, she'd have to find something else to call the woman.

**Author's Note- Thanks for reading! Please leave a review and let me know if there's anything you guys would like to see. I'd be happy to work it in.**


	4. Chapter 4

XJ9 quietly stared down at her duck and gave it a gentle squeeze as she thought about everything. It had been a few days since she had woken up and been overwhelmed by it all. She still hadn't left the room yet and had seen all that she could in there. The only thing that did change was the fact that she began to refer to the lady as Wakeman sometimes since her mind had looked up that one was to refer to someone by their last name as a sign of respect. She didn't know if they were friends or not, so she left Noreen off the table.

Anyway, Wakeman wouldn't let her leave, and it didn't seem like she would let her adventure any time soon. She had grown bored with the room and everything in it. Except for the duck, no she still loved the duck. Although she had the feeling that Wakeman did not. Whenever she made the duck squeak repeatedly the lady didn't seem too happy, she couldn't imagine why she wouldn't like the sound.

The duck was the only fun thing that she had and so far was more fun to play with than the lady. Now, Wakeman was nice to her and warm but she only seemed to want to test. Almost every time she talked to her it was to ask her question and write down her answers. The test had grown a little longer each day and with it her annoyance towards them than grown a little longer as well. She went through with them though for the lady's praise and for the treat that came after it.

She could hear footsteps growing closer and louder. The door opened and Wakeman stepped through it before closing it behind her. She smiled at her and handed over her treat when she could to which XJ9 quickly traded her duck for it. After taking a test the woman had always left for a minute and returned with a bottle. The first time she had been given one she wasn't sure exactly what it was or what to do with it but had figured it out with a little help.

She quickly drank it down and enjoyed the strange liquid. She couldn't taste anything, but that wasn't why she liked it. It was smooth and warm as she drank it and went down her throat. It must have good for her for the occasional stiff joints, that still weren't used to moving all the time now, always felt a bit better after she drank it. That made her like it even more and she drank it down happily.

As she drank it she found herself growing sleepy and her pace slowed down. Wakeman finished writing something down before grabbing a blanket from a chair nearby. She finished drinking her oil and felt herself barely staying awake. She felt like should've been able to stay awake longer, but could recall the lady mumbling something about a battery or something not working properly. She guessed that's why she got so tired and often fell asleep after having her treat.

The lady came over to take away her bottle, and gently push her down so that was laying on the table instead of sitting on it. She plugged her in and covered her up with the blanket. She gave her one last pat on the head before dimming the lights and leaving. She watched Wakeman leave and shut the door behind her. The squirmy part of her was immediately upset that she was gone, but was overcome by her tiredness. Later when she'd wake up she'd be grumpy and lonely, and cry until the woman can back because the squirmy upset part of her would be back in full control.

For now, she let out a yawn and let it go. She turned her head over and looked at her duck that was now on the table beside one of the woman's screens. Her tired mind thought about the question she was asked earlier if she knew what her purpose was. She could barely keep her eyes open. She knew she had the protect something, something important but was too tired to think of what it was again. Right now the only thing she could think of was taking a nap.

As her eyes closed she thought about what was important to her. She didn't know much but she knew she liked the duck. There was no doubt about that, but she liked Wakeman more, even if she wasn't as fun as her duck sometimes. Those two were very important to her, so she decided that if she was going to protect anything than they better be on her list. With that in mind, she closed her eyes, hoping that she and the lady could be friends. Afterall, Noreen would be easier to say than Wakeman.

**Author's Note- Hey sorry this chapter is a day late, but I have family over and I've been a bit busy. Please leave a review and tell me what you think. Thanks for reading!**


	5. Chapter 5

She was excited, like really excited, so excited that she was shaking the table she was sitting on. Wakeman was finally going to let her out of the room and she was ready to go. She watched the woman turn off her screens and put up her clipboard. The lady was moving so slow, so undeniably slow. She would have time to take another nap at this rate. The lady looked over at her and seemed to notice the robot's fussiness. Wanting to avoid another crying fit, for being a powerful robot the girl seemed to cry a lot, Wakeman wrapped up whatever she was doing and went to fetch her.

XJ9 watched her walked over and out of excitement jumped off of the table to which she promptly fell on her face. It was quiet for a moment, but just a moment. It took the robot a minute to realize what had happened and when she did, well, so much for avoiding a crying fit. She only spent a few seconds face down on the cold floor, and that was enough to make her feel worse.

She felt the lady's hands under her arms and she was hoisted up into her arms. She buried her face into the lady's shoulder and sobbed. She cried more out of fear than pain never once having hit the ground so suddenly and unexpectedly, not even when she was learning to walk. The lady rubbed up and down back while shushing her, and she just curled more into the woman.

She didn't know how long she wailed, it felt like hours but was probably only for a few minutes. When she did start to calm down the woman stopped rubbing her back and looped her arm under her legs. She didn't know what Wakeman was up to but didn't pay it any attention. She tightened her grip on the woman's clothes and kept her face in her shoulder. She could feel herself being picked up off the ground and the lady seemed to be caring her off somewhere.

The lady did stop and XJ9 felt her start to be set down. She whined and squirmed at the action, but the lady still set her down. As soon as the lady pulled away from her, she was ready to start screaming again. However, something stopped her before she could start. Looking around she noticed that was no longer in the old familiar room, rather somewhere else.

Her excitement and happiness came back at full force as she turned her head around in every direction to take it all in. The room was brighter than the other one and had much more stuff in it. For example, instead of sitting on a table she was sitting on, what her eyes' scanner identified as, a couch. There was a smaller table in front of her that was much closer to the ground. She looked over it for a second before her eyes were drawn to something much more interesting.

She stood up from where she was sitting and walked over towards it, well more like waddled over. She stood in front of the glass and looked outside. The window was covered up mostly, but she could peak through a little area in it, and what she saw made her eyes as big as dinner plates. She stared out of it in amazement at what she could see. Her eyes scanned over it all and her mind raced to identify everything.

The grass was so green and it swayed in the wind. The same wind blew by and pulled some leaves from a big brown tree with it, and they floated away on the breeze. A fence kept her from seeing off too far, but she could see a nearby house on the other side sticking up from behind it and that led her eyes upward toward the sky. The sky was a beautiful blue with a bright sun shining down on her, she didn't look at it too long for the sun started to hurt her opticals.

She had to pry her eyes away from the outside peeping hole, and she turned around to look at the lady. She pointed at the window and everything outside it with a giant smile on her face to which the lady just laughed at her. XJ9 just smiled back before gluing her eyes to the window once more. She caught some movement out of the corners of her eyes and quickly zoomed in on where it came from.

A little sound of joy came from her lips as she watched an animal fly down and settled down on one of the tree's limbs. It looked kinda like her toy duck in some ways, but different in others. It had a beak and bright colors like her toy, but its wings flapped around and its body shape and colors were very different. The bird plucked at its feathers for second and puffed up its chest before taking off. She watched it fly out of her sight and instantly wished that it would come back.

"I'm glad to see that you're in a better mood."

Wakeman's voice caught her attention and she looked back at the woman.

"Do you like what you see?"

Without even having to think about she quickly shook her head yes.

"It's good that you like what you'll be protecting."

Protecting? She shot the woman a confused, but curious look.

"XJ9, you are the global response unit and it will be your job to protect this planet from anything or anyone who dares to harm it. Do you understand?"

She was still confused at the woman's words and statement, but if it had anything to do with what she saw outside and getting to see more of it than she'd say yes. She shook her head, and the woman let it be.

"I bet you can't wait to go outside now, huh?"

Going outside? Going out there to walk around or play? The thought filled her with such immense joy and she nodded her head so fast it nearly came off.

"Alright, alright calm down. You'll be getting your chance soon, tomorrow we're going out for a few tests with the Skyway Patrol."

The woman continued to talk, and while she knew that she should've been paying attention to her, happy thoughts drowned out Wakeman's words. Tomorrow she was going outside.

**Author's Note- Thanks for reading, and please leave a review they are a great motivation to keep writing. **


	6. News

Author's Note:

Hey, I'm sorry for being so dead on this story. I'm normally pretty good with keeping things on schedule and updated, however, things have been busy lately. I'm starting college soon and this combined with multiple other big changes in my life have things chaotic. Sadly, this story has suffered from it. I'll try to get back to uploading chapters and such, but I don't think I'll be able to make a constant schedule. Thank you for reading and for your understanding, I hope to update soon.


	7. Chapter 6

She didn't like this. No, not one bit. Usually, she'd wake up, have a sweet snack, and have a while to play with her duck. Not today though, ooh no, she was going to go outside today. The thought of that yesterday had made her extremely happy, and she was looking forward to seeing somewhere new, but this wasn't what she expected. It turns out that Wakeman was going to take her somewhere else to go outside.

XJ9 didn't get it. Why did they have to go somewhere else to go out, especially when the place with the fence right outside the window was there? It didn't make any sense to her. Perhaps she would've let it go if that meant that she'd be able to see where they were going, but she couldn't do that either. She was grumpy and irritated at it all. Instead of taking a nap later, as usual, she had to take one at the moment. What didn't help anything was the fact that she was now laying down on the strange table she'd first woken up on.

She slept and had taken naps on it before, but never like this. Every single wire from she'd first opened her eyes was plugged back into her and made it impossible for her to get comfortable. The weird blue tinting cover was back in its place, and while that was now her favorite color, she didn't like how it took over all the others. Despite these things upsetting her, she found herself quite tired.

Just a bit ago, she had a fit when forced to lay down and screamed for nearly an hour. It seemed fighting not to sleep early had made her tired enough to sleep, how cruel. Turning her head over, she watched the woman type in some more words into a screen. The lady still looked a little irritated from her tantrum earlier, and she felt a little pang of something shoot up through her chest.

She only yawned, though as her eyes felt heavy. She closed them and listened to the lady type away. The only other sound in the room was the buzzing of her chips and circuits as her mind raced to figure out what that feeling was. Everything slowed disappeared from around her, and she was left with only her thoughts. The results returned; the feeling she had felt was guilt. Guilt, she decided that she didn't like it and as she fell asleep made a mental note to add it to her dislike list.

She didn't know how long she was asleep, but it must have been for a while. Now and then she drifts in and out of sleep and hears a strange sound. She couldn't place what it was, but she knew she had heard it before. She could also feel her pod slightly shaking, and occasionally it became a little ruffer, but never horrible. The pod felt like it was moving, and so she imagined it with legs strutting around. It made her want to laugh, but she couldn't find enough energy to do so. She drifted back into the dark, quiet space of sleep mode.

Sometime later XJ9 could feel her circuits buzzing and heating up as her charger pushed in a little more energy to help her wake up. As a system diagnostics quickly check through its list, she could already tell something was different. She was waking up like she normally did, but something was off. Scanning through her diagnostics list, she knew that it couldn't be here. No, something else had changed. Was she outside already?

A little surge of excitement went through her. She hoped she was outside, oh how she hoped. She tried to see if she felt anything different about being outside, but couldn't find much of anything. She was confused, was outside always cold and had the sound of fans with it? Outside was strange? Suddenly someone whispered something.

"Do ya think this thing is gonna work?"

She hadn't heard that voice before, and another new voice followed right after it.

"It better, we didn't sponsor this line for nothing, you know."

Line? What line? Other quiet voices mixed in, and suddenly the room was filled with many different sounds. Were this many people always outside? She guessed they would be it looked so lovely out there. The sound of a door opening made everyone silent, and the sounds of footsteps grew closer.

"So this is it, huh. It better be everything you promised Wakeman."

"Trust me, sir, she's already exceeded my expectations so far."

"A lot of the other models also excelled at the beginning too, for your sake let's hope this one doesn't end up like them too."

"...Certainly, sir."

The familiar sound of typing echoed across the room as everyone was deadly quiet. One last click and she found that she could finally wake up, well completely. Her joints and body sudden came ultimately to life, and she slowly opened her eyes. As her optics adjusted, she noticed a few things right off the bat. First off, she was surrounded by people. Tall men in suits were all staring at her with wide eyes. All of watched her from behind a tiny man with colorful things pinned to his uniform.

She could see Wakeman, out of the corner of her eye, standing to the right of her. She couldn't see her face but took in a little relief knowing the familiar woman was with her in this room of new people. That was the other thing she noticed really. She was in a white room with a plain white floor and plain black ceiling. She wasn't outside at all, and at that, she pouted. She didn't like any of this. The men jumped back at her sudden change in expression, and she didn't know why. The short man cut in,

"Wakeman please don't tell me you made another depressed one?"

"Currently not sir, XJ9 has various emotions, and she has been going through normal emotions properly."

The man took a few steps closure to her and looked her over. He stood up as straight as he could and said to her,

"Alright, robot let's see what you got."

Without looking away from her, he shot out an order.

"Sergeant tell them to get the shooting range ready."

Wakeman quickly cut in,

"General this is only supposed to be a check-up on XJ9 to see her progress. We're not supposed to run any physical tests on her yet."

"We don't have time to fool around Wakeman. We've been waiting on one of your robots to be the one, and I'm sure as heck ain't gonna waste five more months of time and resources to decide whether or not to shut one down again."

"General-"

"Prepare the shooting range we're doing the test run now."

**Author's Note- Hey guys, I'm sorry that it took me so long to actually get back to this story. Collage has been keeping me busy, but I'm glad that I was able to find some time to write this chapter. I'm gonna try to update this story more often now that things are settling down some. Thanks for reading and please leave a review. **

**A special thanks to a guest reviewer who went under the name XJ9, they left the first/only review for this story and that gave me a push to work on it. Thank you!**


	8. Chapter 7

She didn't like this, no, not one bit. Wakeman rushed around her typing things into the computer as the other people cleared out of the room. The small man walked to the door and looked her over one last time before shutting it behind him. XJ9 didn't know what to make of the man, but she did know was that he had done something to upset the nice lady. She should've been angry, but instead found herself extremely nervous. Wakeman was rushing around, and the code she was running made the servos in her right arm shift about.

It made her arm feel more burdensome, while something in her head clicked. Walls of words came over her eyes, and while her brain raced to absorbed all of the information, she found herself quite confused. Suddenly the wall of text ended, and the wires popped off from her body. Her arm pulsed with energy as wires buzzed, and she held it tight with her other arm. It hurt, and she found herself with tears already filling her eyes.

"Alright XJ9, I've turned off the safety lock in your right arm. Well, to specify, I've only turned off the safety on one of your weapons."

She could feel the tears ready to run over, and with no uncomfortable wires to hold her in place anymore, she slid down to sit on the ground. The lady continued to type away on her computer for some reason, and she watched her sadly from the floor.

"You now have access to your basic gun form; it's a relatively simple design so that it shouldn't be that hard to transform."

A few little tears escaped her eyes, and she sniffled unhappily.

"I know this will be a struggle for you since we haven't tried to form anything yet, but considering how well you've been progressing, I believe you can do it."

Her body was stiff from the trip she took, there were too many people at once when she woke, the little man had made her uneasy, and now her arm hurt and she to take a stupid test.

"I hope you can do it. A lot is riding on this, but try not to be nervous. I'm sure you'll be fine, but to be safe, let's do a quick trial run and try to form the gun, huh?"

More tears ran down her cheeks, and she could feel the woman's eyes on her. The typing stopped, and she stared down at the ground. The lady's footsteps were the only sound in the room beside her quiet sniffles. She looked up at the woman when her feet came into her ground view.

The lady stood only a little above her eye level but still looked down at her with concern. She sniffled a little more and tried to raise her arms to pull the woman closer. Her right arm shook, and it felt like something was rattling around in there, so she cried as she quickly put her arms down. The lady must've understood her, though, as a second later, Wakeman pulled her close into a hug and gently rubbed her head. Despite how upset she was, she found herself smiling at the woman as she tucked her head into the woman's neck as she had done before when being carried.

She liked this; it was far better than being stared at by the tiny angry man. She made a note to add him to the list of things she didn't like. Sadly, it didn't last much longer, as the woman's device buzzed, and she pulled back to look at it. A look of worry fell on her face as she let out a sigh and stepped back. She shoved the device back in the pocket and looked back at her.

"It looks like they're ready for you."

She tilted her head at the woman, and the lady gave her a tired smile as she stepped away and went to turn off her computer. XJ9 stood up and followed the woman from the computer to the right out the door. The halls were like the room was a somewhat blinding white because of the lights with bare walls and floors. The only difference being that it was, well, a hall and stretched far away out of her sight. Considering how long the hall was and the many doors that lined it, XJ9 decided that whoever's house it was, it was huge.

Wakeman stopped and pushed a button, causing a short series of dings before the two metal doors slide open. She stepped inside, and XJ9 cautiously followed her into the tiny room. It was a strange room that was for sure, as a second later, the two doors shut behind them, and they started to descend. It felt off to be moving down and to be moving, not by herself. Her mind's identifier searched for what exactly she was in. She made a note to herself to create a weird list later and put an 'elevator' on the top. What kind of room moved on its own?

One final loud ding snapped her out of the train of thought, and the doors slid open. She quickly stepped out of the tiny room and waited for the lady. The woman just chuckled at her and continued to lead the way. She didn't know how Wakeman wasn't lost yet; everything looked practically the same to her, the walls were a bit bluer, but everything else was the same. Except for that door with the guards standing in front of it, no that was new. As they approached them, she could hear a snippet of their conversation as they whispered to each other.

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, he was in the hospital for months with a set of broken ribs."

"God, ya think that'll happen with this one too?"

Noticing them coming closer, one of the guards quickly wrapped up the conversation.

"Hopefully not, this one at least looks like a kid instead of god dang tank."

They both shut up and stood at perfect attention then. Not saying a word as Wakeman punched a code into a keypad on the wall. Xj9 could feel the guards' eyes on her, and she looked over both of them. The guard who had talked about the tank was tall and muscular. He stared back at her with a stern look, but she could sense some tension in him. This was the exact opposite of the other guard, an intriguing young woman who didn't even try to hide her staring. She was dressed up in the same uniform as him, lacking the badges though, and seemed to have taken off the heat. Her long black hair flowed down onto her shoulders, but stuck up on the top of her meaning she must have had the cap on some time that day.

They stared back at each other until the door opened, and as it closed behind her, she could hear the lady whisper, "Cool." The room they enter was huge and blank except for a giant viewing window spread out across the wall to the right of her. The tiny angry man sat in a tall chair, and the same soldiers rushed around him. He yelled something that she couldn't hear, and all of the men like cards fell into place. A second later, he pushed another button, and his voice echoed out into the room.

"XJ9 listen up; you only get one shot at this."

A panel on the floor on the far side of the room slide open, and the target rose up from the ground. It was the same size as an archery target, so rather large, but it was still quite far off.

"All you gotta do is hit that target, got it?"

Hit it? Her mind quickly raced and brought up the definition. Hit, to bring one's hand or a tool or weapon into contact with someone or something forcefully and rapidly. That was it; that was all she had to do? She scratched her head in confusion at it all. If all she had to do was hit it, why was the woman so nervous? Granted, it'd take her a second or two to walk across the room and punch the thing but still. Wakeman took a deep breath and looked her dead in the eyes with seriousness.

"XJ9, form your gun."

Gun? What-Oh. It suddenly clicked in her head that the hitting part wouldn't be done with her fist but rather the weapon part of that definition.

"XJ9, form your gun."

The order finally seemed to click something in the very back of her brain, and it made her servos and wires tingle. The tingle spread from her head down to her right arm, since it so painful stiff the tingle made it shake. The rattling thing in her arm from earlier rattled around harder and faster as her mind searched and found the only gun's layouts in her body that were unlocked to it. A small panel slid open just like the floor's had, but out of it rose pieces of metal that slowly and painful shaped themselves.

As the weapon started to take shape, she felt like herself was coming undone. Her cooling systems were pounding like her arm, and she felt like she couldn't catch her breath, even though she didn't have to breathe in the first place. By the time the gun had finally become complete, she felt ready to pass out. She was so tired and out of it, and it was growing worse by the second as the weapon began to pull more energy out of her to make the charged shots.

"Very good, XJ9. Now, focus on the target."

She was so tired, but hearing the little bit of pride in the woman's voice made something inside her swell with happiness. So she raised her arm and looked through the little scope without thinking about it. Suddenly, the center of the target was all she could see. Her eyes zoomed in on it, and calibrations for the distance quickly appeared across her eyes. She automatically adjusted herself to them and gripped her hand around the trigger. All she had to do was hit the center of it, and all she had was one shot at doing it.

She double-checked the calibrations and the adjustments she had made. Her finger nervously twitched on the trigger as she could everyone's eyes on her, and as the energy shot was growing hotter as it continued to pound away in her arm. She checked it all one last time before her finger stopped twitching as it pulled the trigger. It all happened so fast that she couldn't believe it. The ball of energy shot up and out of her at such a fast rate that it took a second for everything to catch up. The knockback shook her whole body, and it felt like it nearly pulled her arm out of its socket. The way the energy had ripped out of her, too, also added another layer of stiffness and pain.

That one shot had utterly exhausted her, yet that wasn't the problem. No, the actual problem was far worse. She stared at the ground for a second and hoped she was wrong. She had to be wrong; she had to be. The second that the trigger was pulled, her arm had shaken, and the result was well...She had to be wrong. Please let her be wrong. She slowly looked up from the ground to the target and felt her hope be utterly crushed. She was right; the sudden shake from her strained arm had caused her to miss the center of the target. The shot had hit exactly five inches to the right of the center mark; she had missed.

**Author's Note- Hey, I'm sorry I haven't gotten around to posting on this story. I've been busier than I ever imagined I'd be, and it's taken its toll on this fanfic. To make up for my absence, I made this chapter longer than the normal ones. **

**Along with college work, I've been doing another project involving Mlaatr. I'm now an animator on MlaatrReanimated, and we'll be reanimating the full first episode of the series! Look it up if you haven't! **

**Thank you all for reading and for sticking with this story so far! Please leave a review if you can, it helps me want to write more! **


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

An utter feeling of dread fell upon XJ9, and as her brain tried to figure out exactly what that new feeling was, all it did was set in more. She stared straight ahead at the target and the burnt mark from her blast that had barely missed the center. She heard the speaker turn on, and she knew that the tiny man was talking, but she wasn't taking it in at all. All she could do was stare at it, the shot that had missed, and with it ruined everything. A few other voices started to mix in with his, but she paid them no mind.

She had missed, she had missed. All she had to do was hit the target, that was it, and yet she screwed it up. She did everything right; she had made the gun and done the math and double-checked everything. How did it all go wrong at the very last second? She started to drown in her thoughts as her eyes zoomed in more and more on the burnt spot. The voices were slower, getting louder and closer as time ticked slowly by. Suddenly a hand was placed on her shoulder, and she snapped out of her daze.

The hand was not of comfort or concern like that of the woman's, but rather forceful in its simple touch. She slowly turned her head to look at the hand's owner. The man she had seen guarding the door earlier nervously looked back at her. She barely moved her arm when he shot back, taking his hand off her, and immediately seemed to prepare himself for a fight. She tilted her head in confusion at him, not understanding why he so upset. She was the one who should be upset and maybe the angry little man. She didn't think about it too much, as the sound of someone clearing their throat caught her attention. Wakeman smiled at her, but it wasn't one that the woman usually gave her. It was off, and that unsettled XJ9 even more.

"XJ9 lower your weapon and turn safety mode back on for it."

She looked away from Wakeman's smile and over at the nervous guard that seemed to be giving it all he had not to draw his own gun before she did what was asked of her. The weapon slowly shifted back into her arm, and she could feel the stiffness set in all over again.

"Good, now I need you to stay here while the General and I have a little chat. Do you understand?"

She nodded, and with her answer, the lady turned around. She walked to the door and shot XJ9 last quick, fake smile before leaving. She turned her head to watch the little man and his men leave the viewing room one by one. She didn't like this, and when she didn't like something, she usually would cry, but not now. She had the feeling that crying wouldn't bring back the kind lady this time and only upset the antsy guard even more. So, she fought back her tears and snuffles, feeling the guard tense even more up at just those little actions. She didn't like this, no, not one bit.

"Oh, What's the matter missing your ma already?"

XJ9 had to keep herself from jumping back at the sudden appearance of the woman. It seemed that sometime between guarding the door with the man, and now the lady had been able to comb down her hat hair. Still, a defiant black curl stuck out of her head that flew around when the woman moved her head in the slightest. XJ9 looked between the both of them in confusion. Both of them donned the same guard uniform; both of them had guarded the same door, and now her she supposed, yet they were already so very different. The woman happily stood a foot away from her, while the nervous man looked like he was about to have a heart attack watching her stand that close. He snapped at the woman under his breath.

"Crikey Lilan, What the heck do you think you're doing?"

"Making sure the bot's okay."

"Okay, okay, making sure the robot's okay! You know what's not gonna be okay if you set that thing off, and when they come back, your guts are splattered all over the floor."

"Fair point, but it also won't be good if they came back to bot crying."

The man opened his mouth to say something but closed it when nothing came out.

"Look, I know you're worried, but I got a good feeling about this one."

The man just crossed his arms and mumbled, "That's what he said before his ribs were flung to the other side of the room." The lady, Lilan, it seemed, shuddered at the man's words, and XJ9 just found herself once more, turning her head in confusion at them. What were they talking about? Lilian turned away from the man, making her little curl sway, and looked back at her.

"Your name is JX9, right?"

It took her a second for the question to sink in, and suddenly she found herself feeling shy for the first time. She timidly shook her head no and watched the lady's brows furrow.

"I swear that was it."

"You were close; just switch the letters around."

She shot the man a smile, before looking back at the timid bot.

"So, it's XJ9, then?"

She found her hands suddenly very interesting, and she fiddled around with her fingers while nodding yes.

"Aw, you're so cute."

Her face suddenly felt much hotter as her brain identified the meaning of the word, and she heard the lady laugh. The man let a chuckle, and her face was practically burning at the moment. She stopped looking at her hands as she quickly used them to cover her blushed cheeks. She debated running a system check, like Wakeman usually made her do, to see if something was wrong, but her attention was drawn to a low buzzing sound. Lilian reached in her pocket and pulled out a device.

She started talking into it, perhaps XJ9 should've been paying more attention to what Lilian was saying, but she wasn't. All of her attention was immediately drawn to what was attached to the device. Her brain raced to identify the creature on the end of the little chain like it had done before with her duck. She wished she had her duck right now, but the little blue plushie on the end of the chain was still good. The small...bear was adorable, and she wanted to reach out and squeeze it to see if it squeaked as well. She already really liked the little bear, and Lilian too, she guessed. She'd like her more if she let her squeeze the bear, though.

**Author's Note- Thank you all for being patient and putting up with this crazy update schedule. To celebrate the Holidays and New Year, the next update will be on Dec 25th. Thank you all for reading, and please leave a review. See you on the 25th!**


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

XJ9 stood still and watched the little blue bear dangle in the air. It was so adorable and so small far smaller than her duck. Yet, it was still hypnotizing distractive and made her want to do nothing but focus on it. Lilian must have noticed her staring at it, as after finishing her call, she proceeded to move the phone around in the air, and XJ9's eyes followed the bear at every single turn. The woman let out a little chuckle, but the robot ignored it. The bear was much more important than whatever the lady was laughing at.

"Do you like my buddy?"

The shyness that she had monetarily forgotten to feel came back at full force. She dumbly nodded yes and watched in utter surprise as Lilian unclipped the chained bear from her device and handed it over to her. All she could bring herself to do though was staring at the little blue bear swaying in the air on its chain. The woman laughed again and gently reached out towards her.

When her hand touched hers, she lost focus again but not on the bear this time. XJ9 blanked out again as she watched Lilian's hand pull hers away from her side and up. It was here that she noticed the same thing she had when the first time Wakeman had rubbed her head. The person was so warm, so soft, and she was not. She was cold, hard, and different, and she didn't know why.

Lilian dropped the tiny plush into her hand and took hers away. The little bear was covered in fur and, in return, felt incredibly soft. She held it in her hand gently so as not to hurt the little thing as she ran her thumb over it. The plush's fur was a light blue color like the sky she had seen once outside. It was all fuzzy except for its rough fabric muzzle and beads for eyes and a nose. She gave a quick squeeze, but it made no sound, no matter the soft fur more than made up for the lack of noise.

As she rolled the plush around in her hands, she found a tag attached to its back. She was about to try and read the inscription on it but was snapped out of her fascinated daze by the door opening. She looked over her shoulder to see the tiny man and Wakeman entering the room. Immediately, the guards snapped to attention and stood straight and still.

"XJ9, come we'll be leaving."

Wakeman spoke with authority in her voice, but XJ9 could hear just a bit of joy in her tone. She moved to follow but stopped after a second when she remembered the toy in her hand. She looked down at the bear for a moment more before turning around and holding her hand towards the woman. Lilian stiffy but gently took the bear back, before snapping back to attention. With that done, XJ9 followed after Wakeman, who now looked a bit...perplexed, at least according to her scanner.

Together in silence, they walked back the way they came. The halls still looked the same to her, and the elevator with its shifting floor even made her a bit uneasy. When they finally reached back to the room this whole test business had started in, Wakeman finally let out a breath of relief.

"XJ9, I can't tell you how lucky we were."

She cleaned her glasses with shaky hands as she gestured for the robot to step over towards the carrier. When XJ9 got there, much to her disappointment, the woman began to start strapping her in again and plugging in wires immediately.

"The General was kind enough to cut us some slack on the test. You may not have hit the center mark but did land a hit on the target itself, and that was passable enough. Although, if he had just waited until we were supposed to do the weapon test originally, I guarantee that you would've been able to land that shot."

She spoke the last sentence with a bit of bitterness in her voice, and the tone was added to XJ9's dislike list.

"Still, I'm quite impressed with your progress. Perhaps, picking up the pace on your teaching would be beneficial."

She knew that the lady was still talking but suddenly couldn't find the strength to stay awake. Making the weapon and shooting it plus all of the stress this whole situation had put her through had worn the robot out. As the woman's words grew more muffled until it was gone, and everything was black around her, she wondered about the big blue. She wondered about the light blue sky outside and if it was just as soft as the bear.

**Author's Note- Thanks for reading, and Happy Holidays! Please leave a review; they do help. Thanks again. **


	11. Chapter 10

It had been a few days since she had gone "outside," and so far, not much had changed. XJ9 still went through the same schedule as she usually did, with little tests, ducky time, bottles of oil to drink, a nap, and repeat until the next day. Today had started the same as usual, and she was now playing with her duck. The test she had just finished involved her matching up cards, one would have a picture and the other one a word. She was glad that she was done with it, in all honestly the card test by far was her least favorite. She didn't like reading all that much as the letters always seemed to rattle around in head as her scanning mind figured it out.

Now that she thought about it, anything that made that processing part of mind takes over bothered her. Yet, she couldn't figure out why. No matter, she let go of the thought and focused on her duck. The bright yellow plastic was starting to fade a little where she had always held it, and sadly its squeak wasn't as loud as it used to be. It made her a little sad when she noticed these things, but she still absolutely adored it. She hugged it close to her and rubbed the top of its head gently only to stop as soon as she heard the door open.

Wakeman walked in with an excited look on her face as she walked over to her. XJ9 watched the woman quickly type something into the computer with a grin on her face. She racked her brain for any reason why the woman was so happy. This hadn't been the first time that the lady was happy when coming to see her, but she was never this happy. Looking closer at the concentrated typer, she had bags under her eyes and looked like she was ready to pass out. The lady clearly needed to take a nap, the thought made her yawn, maybe they could take one together. She would like the company and the warmth that the woman always somehow had.

"XJ9."

She turned away from her duck with a sleepy look on her face. Wakeman looked confused for a second before checking her watch.

"I suppose it is getting closer to your recharge, well no matter, we can at least get you settled in."

Now, she was the confused one as the lady shut off the computer and came closer to her.

"I have a special surprise, you XJ9! You are going to be absolutely thrilled."

Her face turned into a scowl at the woman's words. From her experience, the lady's surprises usually resulted in a new test or something that kept her from playing with her duck.

"What's with that look, young lady? You'd think you'd be a little excited for a surprise."

She ran the situation through her brain and decided it couldn't be that bad. If the surprise was a new test, it would have to wait until after her nap. The woman was very strict with nap time, something about a sleeping schedule, and adjusting, and she wouldn't be able to finish the test before then. If somehow it wasn't a test, at least she'd get something new out of it. She gave Wakeman a small tired smile, and when return one, it made hers grow bigger.

"Come along, XJ9."

She slid off the table onto her feet and only stumbled a little this time. The first time she had slipped off of it, she fallen right onto the ground, had spent fifteen minutes crying, and had latched herself onto a slightly exasperated Wakeman. It took another fifteen minutes for the woman to pry the clingy robot off of her, hey she liked cuddles what was wrong with that. Anyway, she followed the woman up the stairs to the room with the closed-off windows. She stopped believing they were there, only to be surprised when motioned to keep following. Now, this was getting interesting. They walked up the staircase that she had seen before, but had never tried to go up and down an entirely new hall. It was long with so many doors and rooms, reminding her of the strange white place with the angry little man running it. They stopped in front of a door.

"XJ9, I must admit you performed remarkably for your first try at the headquarters, and so I decided to speed up your lessons a bit."

She frowned, she knew it was going to be a new test.

"Therefore, to continue with your lessons, you'll be moving into your base of operations."

The base of what now? Wakeman opened the door and walked inside, she followed her, and her jaw dropped. She stared up through green-tinted windows at the sunny sky and the few clouds floating around up there. XJ9 had never seen such a big view before she was stunned. She had pulled her eyes away from it to look around at everything else.

The room was so different from the one she had been staying in and from the "living room" downstairs. A bed was pushed up against a wall, and the sunlight fell down on its walls from giant windows above. It was covered in the color purple along with the walls, and seemingly hundreds of monitors and machines were hiding them. All of the monitors were lit up, each displaying a new place to her.

She didn't bother with reading the labels for the area instead scanning over all of the videos as fast as she could. They were so many places she has never seen, and all of them were even different from each other. She scanners raced to identify everything it could as she couldn't decide what monitor to focus on. Her eyes darting around as she ran around to each one of them.

"XJ9, Are you listening to me?"

She screeched to a halt and about tripped over her own two feet. She hadn't even noticed the lady had been talking for the last minute or two. How could she pay attention to her, though, there were so many things that demanded her attention now. Her eyes flicked from the woman to a monitor as she bounced in place. The woman shot her a disapproving look, and she stopped bouncing.

"XJ9, please don't start."

It was too late; she hadn't meant to upset the lady, especially not after the woman had given such a pleasant surprise. She fell onto the ground as tears started pouring out of her eyes. She hadn't meant to. There was just so much to see and do, and, and...There was no excuse. The lady was upset with her now, and she'd probably take the surprise away. That thought made her cry harder, somehow.

Within seconds the woman walked over and picked her up, and she clung to her. She didn't even know why she was crying so hard. Wakeman had been upset with her before, and she had never had such a fit. Her scanners had caught up with her, and suddenly her head was filled with tons of information. Too much information, it made her head hurt, combine that with her earlier tiredness, and she found herself overwhelmed.

She sobbed and tried to curl into the lady tighter. It was too much; she wanted to sleep just sleep and let everything be okay. The lady mumbled some words to her that she couldn't make out over her sobs, but the tone of her voice was soft and comforting. She rubbed her head, and she closed her eyes. The overwhelmedness and the woman's actions reminded her of when she had first woken up. With that thought, she closed her eyes and entered sleep mode, hoping that everything would still be there when she woke up.

**Author's Note- Hey everyone, sorry that it took so long to update. I hope you've all kicked off 2020 with a blast! Please leave a review. They really help. Thanks for reading.**


	12. Chapter 11

She had never felt so comfortable before, and she sleepy nestled deeper into the softness below her. Her internal clock and alarm told her it was time to get up, but she refused. She was wrapped up, cozy, and just the thought of leaving all that made her upset. So she nuzzled in more and tried to go back to sleep. However, she had no luck, and she pulled her eyes open. Her scanners took a moment to adjust, and she realized that the room she was in looked different.

She turned her head to the left and looked out the window into the sky. Dark clouds had rolled in and covered up the sun making the room darker. It still looked beautiful to her, though, and just looking out a window made her feel happy. She pulled her arm out from under a blanket on her, and while grumbling from losing some of the cozy feeling, she rubbed her eyes. The 'bed,' as her mind defined it, was nice, and its placement near the window made it better.

Giving little effort, but still grumbling XJ9 rolled over onto her right side. The darker sky had made the room more ominous, and the screens shone brightly in the room. The pale whites, blues, and greens lit up more of the outside world. Her head still ached from taking in too much earlier, but she tried not to focus on it. Granted, the bright screen lights didn't help much, but she was hypnotized by them none-the-less.

Different types of buildings and skies filled the screens. Fields that stretch out into mountains and blended together beautifully. The sky touched down into the sea and disappeared with the sun in one. Trees and their limbs swayed in the wind as rain fell on them. It was almost like she could hear the pitter-patter of the storm. Oh wait, she looked back over her shoulder and watched the rain hit her window.

She watched the raindrops stick to her window and run down, merging with other droplets. She turned her head back to the screen with the trees in the rain and wondered where it was. Maybe it was far, far away, or perhaps it was just right outside out of her sight. She snuggled up under her blanket and watched it for a few more minutes. The sound of familiar footsteps caught her attention, she watched the door open, and the lady walked in.

Wakeman quietly stepped in and shut the door behind her. She must've noticed that she was awake as after looking at her, she crossed the room. She wasn't as quiet as before but remained from making any unnecessary loud noises. Wakeman sat on XJ9's bed, and she watched the woman with curious sleepy eyes.

"Do you like your new room?"

Her room, like hers to keep? Like how the ducky was hers? She nodded, yes.

"I'm glad you do; now, this room is essential. Do you know why?

She wracked her brain for a moment, but couldn't come up with anything, so she shook her head no.

"This room is important because it will assist you in your purpose. You will be able to watch over the world. Incredible, isn't it?"

She wasn't sure what to think but nodded her head yes. She liked the screens.

"XJ9, do you know why you were built?"

Why was she built? She hadn't thought about it before, and now the question was running through her mind. She didn't know how long she thought about the issue, but it must have been longer than she thought.

"It's alright if you don't know right now. There are some things that I'd like you to learn before we get to that, then, later on, you'll truly understand your purpose."

She didn't nod at that; she didn't understand what the lady was talking about. The lady didn't seem to mind her lack of an answer. It was quiet between them, but not uncomfortable. The rain hitting the window made a soothing sound, and Wakeman's presence always made her calm down, so the result was her feeling quite pleased at the moment.

XJ9 scanned over the screens, and there was so much to see. Yet, one scene caught her attention. The screen was of a park on a sunny day with a little breeze blowing through. Flowers swayed in the breeze and looked like they were doing a little dance. As nice as all of that was, her eyes were drawn to the corner of the screen. An older woman and a young boy were sitting together in the grass and laughing.

She watched the boy play with a toy and the woman talking to him. It reminded her of when Wakeman would speak to her, while she would play with her ducky. As she watched them interact more, she continued to see similarities between both of them. Her brain connected the dots quickly and scanned the internet for what came up. Two words popped up in her mind, 'son' and 'mother'.

She dismissed the word 'son' immediately. She wasn't a boy. She was a girl; with that in mind, another word corresponding to it came up instead 'daughter.' The word 'daughter' didn't make much sense to her, but it connected to 'mother'. **Mother, a female parent. **What was a 'parent'? Was it important to have? Her brain searched the internet again. **A Parent is the caretaker of a child.**

A child, the little boy must be a child. He was a child, a son apparently, and that woman must be his mother. She watched the woman wipe something off his face as he squirmed to get away from her. She laughed at her son before handing him a drink, which he eagerly took. Suddenly, she found herself wanting a drink. The sweet treat that she got after tests and hoped now that Wakeman would be nice and give her some.

She looked at Wakeman sitting on her bed, and before she could think about the treat again, a new thought popped into her head. Noreen Wakeman was such a long name, such a hard name she would bet to say. She needed to call the lady something else, and maybe this was it. 'Mother' was shorter than Wakeman, and according to the internet, there were so many different versions of the word to say. She could find a version of it she liked and learn how to say that when referring to the lady.

"What's got you so giddy now?"

She hadn't realized that she had been smiling and squirming around for the last few minutes enough to get the Wakeman's attention. She sat up and left her coziness behind to get a better look at the lady sitting on her bed. She then looked back at the screen with the park and watched the mother and son enjoy each other's company. Yes, she had a good feeling about the word mother. Now, only if she had her ducky to complete the picture.

**Author's Note- Thank you all for being patient, and for reading! I'm going to try to have another chapter posted around the end of this week. Please leave a review. It really helps!**


	13. Chapter 12

XJ9 knew that she didn't like them before, but not now she was sure that she didn't like them. The 'Skyway Patrol,' as they had loudly called themselves, had busted down their door today, and it left her in a bad mood. The men had just charged in out of nowhere, and it had thrown them off schedule. She liked her schedule, especially since she had just finished her test, and Wakeman, Mom, was about to get her a treat.

Mom, she liked the word, and it made her smile a little inside. However, that smile was wiped quickly off her face as she watched the men walk all over their house. Two of them were setting something up, and two others were guarding their house door. One man was ordering them around, and she recognized him as one of the men that had stood close by the General. He was very loud and pushy, yeah, she decided that she disliked him the most.

She crossed her arms and huffed at him, who did he think he was busting in on their home. XJ9 slouched into their couch and took comfort from the softness of it. She couldn't enjoy it much, though, as her mom walked around trying to talk to the men. They seemed to brush her off, and that made something in her chest tighten up. All of a sudden, a loud squeak filled the air, and her head snapped towards it.

A man was holding her ducky, her ducky, and had squeaked it. She glared at him, and he must've noticed her as he looked over at her. Then he smiled at her, not a friendly smile like her moms, but a mean smile. She didn't even know that those existed till now. He squeaked her ducky again and laughed. She didn't like his laugh.

"This yours' robot?"

He dangled the duck in front of her, and she felt that thing in her chest tighten up even more. He only laughed at her, but that smile on his face was quickly gone when the bossy man snapped at him to get back to work. He dropped her ducky on the floor and raced over to help set up. She picked her toy off the ground and gently rubbed its head. It didn't deserve that; she hoped its feelings weren't hurt.

"Why don't you go to your room?"

She looked up from her duck at her mom that had suddenly appeared beside her. She rubbed XJ9's head a little before motioning her to get going. She stood up, and her mom smiled at her, to which she returned a smile. She made sure to take her ducky with her, but as she was about to walk up the stairs to her room, a voice cried out.

"Where do you think you're going, robot!"

The loud, bossy man had yelled at her, and now everyone seemed to be watching her. She didn't like it, and she wasn't sure what to do. Wakeman, on the other hand, did and immediately butted in.

"XJ9 is going to her room officer."

"The robot needs to stay here, Wakeman."

"And why's that?"

"We need to keep an eye on it."

"Keep an eye on-XJ9 is perfectly capable of going to her room and behaving herself."

"You might think that, but until we can be sure-"

"I am sure. What I'm not sure about is you and your men coming into my home like this. Now, if you don't want me to have you and your men kicked out of my house right this second, then you will leave XJ9 alone."

The man seemed taken back at Wakenman's words and was speechless for a moment. But only a moment.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Wakeman, but we need to keep an eye on the robot, orders from above. It can go to its room, but we at least need to send someone to watch it."

"...Fine."

The man turned to their doorway and yelled,

"Smith, Ryan, get in here."

The two cadets that had been guarding the door walked in, and to XJ9's surprise, she recognized them.

"Both of you are to accompany XJ9 to her room and keep an eye on her. Do you understand?"

In sync they both replied,

"Yes, sir!"

The two of them approached her, and she slowly began walking up the stairs once more. They followed behind her up the stairs, down the hall, and to her room. Once the door was shut, the mood immediately changed.

"I gotta admit, I didn't think we'd be seeing you any time soon."

Lilian happily swayed on her feet, far different from her stiff stance downstairs, before starting to walk around the room. The man was as still and strict as he was last time and didn't move from his spot. XJ9 watched him as Lilan scanned over all the screens.

"Impressive setup, you got you, XJ9."

She nodded to the cadet and moved away from the worried man.

"You seem to have got all of the stops covered. Have you been to any of these places yet?

She shook her head no at it. She had just gotten her room yesterday and hadn't even thought about going to see the new places on the screen. Although, now that she was thinking about it, the idea of going to visit the places did sound appealing.

"I bet you'll be seeing plenty of these places soon enough, though. You do gotta protect the whole world."

She raised her eyebrows at Lilian's words. Protect the whole world, where was this coming from? Lilian didn't seem to pay her words much mind, as her attention immediately shifted to the other cadet. He was still standing near the doorway and hadn't budged an inch.

"Come on, Will, relax a little bit and come look at all these screens."

"Look, I love your enthusiasm, but I'd rather not."

"Ugh, Will I'm standing right beside the robot and haven't lost my ribs, limbs, or anything yet."

"The keyword here is yet."

She rolled her eyes at him, and XJ9 giggled at their exchange. Lilian looked back at her and put her hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry about him. He's just a bit worked up after the last one. He's a real softie once you get to know him."

Will huffed at that, and both of the girls just laughed. The next few minutes or so were spent with Lilian and XJ9 walking around the room together, looking over the screens. She had even shown the lady her ducky, and she had said that it was cute. The words had made the thing in her chest untighten and disappear. It was nice to spend time with them, even if Will wasn't that involved in it. He was still better than the other loud and rude cadets downstairs.

She didn't want to admit it, but when it was time for them to leave, she couldn't help but feel somewhat sad. She walked down with them and waved goodbye. Her goodbye was only for them. It wasn't for the other cadets, not until they apologize for busting into their house and being mean.

When the door was closed, she noticed her mom looking utterly exasperated. She couldn't blame her. She had been with what seemed to be the only nice cadets, in her experience, while her mom had to deal with the others. XJ9 felt a tinge in her chest at the thought, and at the fact that even though her mom told her to go to her room, she probably should've stayed with her. If she had, then maybe she'd be in better spirits.

Wakeman sat down tiredly on the couch and began to rub her forehead while mumbling words under her breath. XJ9 sat down beside her on the sofa and found herself lost at exactly what to do. She recalled how Lilan had put her hand on her shoulder earlier, and did the same to her mom. Wakeman seemed to be startled at the sudden touch, and she wondered if the shoulder touch was the right move to make.

Her mom simply smiled at her and patted her hand before getting up from the couch. She watched her walk out of the living room and felt her heart go with her. She must've messed it up. Why did she do that, clearly the woman was mad at her. Part of her wanted to cry, so her mom would come back and be affectionate towards her again. The other part of her refused to, simply because she didn't deserve the attention if she had upset her. The footsteps drew closer, and even when she knew that her mom had walked into the room, she didn't look up from the ground.

"What's the matter, XJ9?"

The woman sat beside her, and it was quiet for a second.

"I know why you're upset."

Did she, really?

"Don't worry; I didn't forget."

Forget? XJ9 looked up from the ground at Wakeman, and her eyes went wide. She quickly reached forward with grabby hands, and the woman just chuckled at her eagerness. As soon as she got a hold on the bottle of oil, she immediately began to chug her treat happily. She leaned back on the couch and curled up as Wakeman picked up some papers and started reading over them. She looked at her mom, her mom. XJ9 liked the sound of it. She also knew now that she couldn't have been upset with her. She wouldn't have given her the treat if she was. As the oil ran down her throat, she made a note to work on talking. She wanted to say mom out loud.

**Author's Note- What this? Two updates in a week?! This craziness has been brought to you by Spring Break. Thank you for reading, and please leave a review, it helps.**


	14. Chapter 13

Talking was harder than it looked. It was harder than she thought it would be, and despite how hard she was trying, she was starting to believe that she'd never spit a word out. XJ9 was currently sitting on her bed in her room, looking at a book about the alphabet. Each page was colorful with a different letter and a list of words that start with the letter. She was currently staring at the letter M's page, more specifically at the word 'Mom' on it. Above the word was a picture of a kid hugging their mom, and it made her frown.

Maybe if she learned how to talk, then her mom would hug her like that, but that was still far away. The sad thought made her want to cry, but she shoved the tears away and tried to focus again. It was a simple word one that was only three letters long, yet it stumped her. She wasn't sure what she was doing wrong, and that made her huff in frustration. She was reading the book which had taught her letters and which letters made up the word. While her brain had been pulling up samples of the letters sounds for her to hear. Yet, she still couldn't spit a word out as everything just came out as a messed up sound.

XJ9 didn't know how long she had been at it, but it was too long and too irritating for her. She slammed the book closed and threw it on the ground beside her bed before flopping over on it and curling up. She had been upset before, but never like this. Why couldn't she do it? It was just one word, and it should be so simple. Mom, all she had to say was mom, why couldn't she? She let an irritated mumble before she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

She got up and paced around her room, looking at all the monitors. She scanned across all of them, and each one helped ease some of her frustrations. She loved looking at all of them, and a big smile spread across her face at the thought that all of them were hers. As she was watching them, a person caught her eye. Someone in a Skyway Patrol uniform was talking to someone at the park. The cadet scribbled something down on his notepad before saying something else, and both of the people split up.

Skyway Patrol, ugh, the thought of them brought back some of her feelings of irritation. She didn't understand those people for sure, what did those guys even do? Besides breaking into her house, and being mean to her mom. Now that she thought about them a little more, not only did she not know why they were bothering them a lot, but also, what did those guys do? They have to do something, right? XJ9 could have contemplated it all a bit more, but quickly got fed up with all of it.

Yesterday the men in suits had busted in and disrupted her schedule, and now she wasn't going to let them disrupt her thoughts too if she could help it. She made a mental note to lookup more about them later, but for the time being, she had a bigger issue on her hands. She walked back over to her bed and picked up the book off the ground. Some of its pages had gotten bent up from being thrown, and she gently smoothed out its pages as an apology to it. Poor book. She felt bad for it, but at the same time quickly felt that frustration from earlier come back as she couldn't get the pages to stop being crumpled. As she smoothed the pages out, she heard her bedroom door being opened.

"XJ9, are you ready for your next progress test?"

She didn't look up from what she was doing and frowned. She didn't want to take a test; she just wanted to make her own progress on talking.

"Today, we'll be testing your scanners and recognition software."

She didn't want to test some scanners and whatever software. She wanted to talk, and she wanted this page to straighten out.

"Now, for this test, I'll be showing you a picture. It'll then be your job to locate the item or person in the crowd as fast as possible."

She didn't mean too, really, she didn't mean to. She was just so frustrated with everything, the talking, Skyway Patrol, the test, and now the crumbled up page. She didn't mean to lose her patience with it, but she did, and when she did, she pulled a little too hard on the page. The loud sound of paper ripping filled her room, and all she could do was stare at it. The letter M's page was ripped across it, and the tear went right through the word 'Mom.'

She dropped the book, just dropped it, and watched it hit the floor. She looked at the piece of the page in her hand. Half of all the words were on it, but she only focused on half of the 'o' and the last 'm' from 'Mom.' The picture of the mom and the kid hugging was ripped in two now and the kid was alone on her piece. She stared at the lonely kid. She watched as drops of water suddenly fell onto the piece of paper, and was confused for a moment to realize then that those were her tears. She didn't even notice that she had started crying, but when she did notice, well, that was enough for her.

She fell on the ground like the book did and rubbed her fists over her eyes frantically, trying to stop crying. The more she rubbed her eyes though, the worst it seemed to get, and that made her rub more furiously. She wasn't sure how it happened or when it did, but eventually, her brain registered warm hands on hers that were pulling her hands away from her face.

"Oh, don't do that now. You'll scrap your optics."

Her mom's voice was soft and sweet, not angry like she thought it would be, and for some reason, that made her cry even harder. With her hands not being busy with rubbing her eyes, XJ9 threw her arms around her mom, wanting any form of comfort. She could feel a warm hand rubbing her back, and with each little rub, she felt herself grow more tired. She knew she shouldn't fall asleep, she was supposed to take her nap after her test, but she suddenly found herself too tired to care about the test so much as her eyes drifted closed. Her systems were buzzing as they worked to keep her from overheating, but the buzz wasn't annoying. If anything, the light noise made her feel even more sleepy. She'd take the test later she decided, and with that matter settled, she fell asleep.

**Author's Note- Hey everybody, I just wanted you all to know that I haven't given up on this story despite the lack of updates. I worked to get two chapters done during Spring Break because I knew that April was going to be pretty busy for me. College finals were rough and I had a lot of work to do. I've been updating at least once a month to this story, and I can say it's all going to change starting now. **

**With college out for the summer, I'm proud to say that this story will now be updating every week during summertime! It will be updating every Sunday, except for this week. (As its update is this chapter, I just wanted to get back to you all as soon as possible so it's early.) Thank you all for reading and sticking with this story! Things are going to start rolling soon with shenanigans. **

**Please leave a review they mean a lot to me. Thanks for reading!**


	15. Chapter 14

It was dark and quiet when it first happened, and not wanting to deal with it, she ignored it. But then it happened again and then again, and each time it grew harder to ignore. XJ9 squirmed a little and tried to shake the touch off. The warm touch on her arm came back, and she could hear a voice far away. A very familiar voice that belonged to a certain lady. Now, any other time she would have liked the warmness or the voice, but it was distributing her piece. The voice grew closer and little louder along with touch becoming more noticeable and her dark world started to fade away.

"XJ9, XJ9. Come on, you've got to get up now."

She huffed squirmed away from again, trying to go back to the peaceful sleep.

"XJ9."

Sadly, though, she couldn't. She opened her eyes and immediately felt tears prick at the edges of her eyes from her sleepy vision. Through her blurred vision, she could tell she was on her bed, and with that in mind, she grabbed the edge of her blanket and pulled it over her head. She buried her face into the cloth and grumbled. Why was she awake? Why couldn't her mom just let her keep sleeping?

She could feel the blanket moving and a hand on her back. She could hear little clicks and feel where her changer plugged into on her back being removed. She then felt the cover being pulled off of her, causing her to let out a groan as the light from the window fell perfectly down on her face and into her eyes. Not liking that one bit, she turned back to the other side and was met with her mom sitting there. Suddenly, everything came flooding back, the ripped book page, the missed test, and her little meltdown. A new feel settled in her gut, it was bulky and uncomfortable, and occurring to her mind known as 'shame.' She added it to her dislikes list.

"XJ9."

Her mom's voice forced her to look up from the woman's coat and to her eyes. She couldn't tell what much from looking at them but could feel the sense of shame grow heavier in her gut.

"XJ9, are you ready to take your test now?"

She had to keep herself from looking away and squirming at her mom's voice. The lady wasn't mad at her clearly, but her voice had a layer of something onto it that made her feel a bit worse about everything.

"XJ9, answer me."

That layer of something was irritation if she had to guess, and not wanting to make it worse, she simply nodded yes to her mom. The woman slid off her bed and began to arrange the cards she had brought in with her. XJ9 watched her and slowly sat up completely. She couldn't believe herself. She had upset her mom. She hadn't meant too; really, she was just...stressed she supposed. It wasn't like she had meant to rip the page or-the page! She peaked over the side of the bed to see the book wasn't where she had dropped it earlier.

She scanned all over the floor near her bed but saw no sign of it. Looking up from the ground and staring at her hand, the one who had ripped it, she noticed her little table beside her bed. Laying on it, beside the lamp and part of her charger, was the book. She reached out to grab it but stopped midway. What if she ripped a page again, or worse, what if she ripped the whole book in half? She quickly pulled her hand back and held it close.

"XJ9, are you ready?"

She jumped a little at the woman's sudden words and quickly looked at her. Her mom looked back at her tiredly, and out a small sigh.

"Were you paying attention?"

She froze at the question. She could nod yes, and perhaps that would make her mom feel better, but honestly, she hadn't been listening. She was sure that failing a test would upset the woman more, especially if she actually knew what to do and just messed it up from not listening. Confused and concerned, without even realizing it, she shook her head all-around in a strange nod and shake motion. The woman raised an eyebrow at this.

"Yes, or no XJ9?"

The shame in her gut seemed to twist as she nervously shook her head no.

"Verywell, but I won't repeat this. I'm going to show you a card with an item or person on it. It'll be your job to locate the item or person on this picture as fast you can understand?"

She nodded her head, yes, and the test started. The picture was of some busy street somewhere in the world and had what seemed to be hundreds of people on it. It took her second and to find the man on the first card presented to her, but she still found him. These repeated for a bit, each time there was a new person to find or an item like a particular car or umbrella in the crowd, and each time she located them quickly. Nothing seemed to be able to hide from her scanners, and the shame in her gut began to be replaced by pride in her little accomplishments. When the test was over, she felt happy with how she did, and a smile had spread over her face. She looked up the picture to find the same prideful look reflected at her from her mom's face.

"Very well done, XJ9. I'm quite impressed."

A light blush covered her face as she sheepishly smiled at the praise and head pat that came with it.

"That's it for today. Wait here, and I'll go get your treat."

Wakeman set her clipboard and cards down on the little table and walked out of the room. XJ9 watched her go, smiling happily at her before her eyes drifted over to the table and the book on it. Her happiness instantly vanished, and a frown took the place of her smile. She slowly reached over and carefully lifted the book up to not hurt it anymore. She was just as delicate with the pages, even more so, as she carefully flipped through all of the letters.

As she grew closer to the letter M's page, her anxiousness grew as well. She paused on the letter L for a moment before turning the page. She could stare at the next page as her mom came walking back in with her treat. Wakeman came up to the bed and held the bottle out to her while saying,

"Here you are."

She didn't reach out to take it. All could do was stare at the book in her hands. She could feel her mom's eyes on her, and soon enough, the mattress sifted as the woman sat beside her.

"What's the matter?"

The woman peeked over her arm to look at the book.

"I know it's not perfect, but I did the best I could."

XJ9 didn't look up from it, she ran her hand gently down the page and where it had been taped back into place. There were a few crinkles on the page from where before she had bent it up, and the taped section gave it a shiny look depending on how you looked at it, but that wasn't important. What was important was the picture. The kid and their mom were back together, hugging. She slowly looked up from her book and at her mom with a small smile.

"Is it alright?"

She slowly nodded her head yes.

"That's...good to hear. Have you been practicing?"

To that, she nodded her head again.

"Wonderful! Can you say anything yet?"

A little frown covered her features as she shook her head no.

"Well, that's alright. You're a new technology, after all, there's bound to be some challenges to face, but I'm sure you'll get it soon. Is there anything you've been trying to say specifically?"

She watched the woman for a second before showing her the letter M's page and looking back up at her. She pointed at her.

"Me? Are you trying to say 'person' or my name?"

She shook her head no and pointed at her again before pointing down at the three-letter word in her book. It was quiet and tense then, and for a second, she feared that she had made a big mistake. However, immediately she didn't regret it as she suddenly got the hug she wanted after all.

**Author's Note- Thanks for reading everyone! I'll see you all next Sunday! Please leave a review and tell me what you think, they really help. **


	16. Chapter 15

She found herself staring up at the ceiling and looking out of the skylight. To XJ9, everything just felt a little off. Usually, she would already be asleep and charging for the next day, but now she couldn't close her eyes. Earlier that day, she had thrown off her schedule by having a fit over ripping a page out of a book and talking. Said fit had made her fall asleep earlier than normal, and her nap had gone on longer than usual. So now, all she could do was stare up and out the windows at the night sky.

She knew that she should be sleeping, but the long nap had charged up her battery more, and it turns out that her battery's issues were starting to be fixed. This resulted in her losing less energy when doing a task, and it all seemed great at the beginning but late at night, not so much. She had woken up fully powered up and ready to start the day only to realize that it was 2 a.m., and the day had only barely begun. She squirmed around in her bed for a bit, trying to go back to sleep. Eventually, she had given up on that and was now stargazing.

XJ9 let her eyes wander star to star and connect them to make some pictures or just a bunch of squiggles. Her electronic brain had searched the internet and brought up constellations for her find; while they were interesting, she quickly lost interest. She liked what her mind could come up with more than a list of stuff she should see. As her eyes traced the stars sometimes, they would fall onto the windows, and she'd trace their panes until her eyes wandered back into the room and to the monitors. When it got dark out, all the monitors would automatically adjust their brightness, and, because of this, the room had a green glow to it as they all flickered through their set of cameras.

At night everything seemed to be very different. Some places would be quiet and peaceful, while others seemed to wake up and be buzzing with life. During the day for her, some areas would be fast asleep as it was night for them, and she liked seeing how it was day time for them currently while it was dark out for her. It was an exciting contrast really how some places wholly changed when the sun went down.

She watched a screen click to a different camera angle, and she saw sleeping birds on a wire. Another screen clicked over as well, and now she could see a very different looking bird resting on the top of a building. This brought a smile to her face and a little tinge of excitement, she couldn't wait to go outside to see all of these different places with their different birds and times, and anything else they had to offer.

She let her eyes wander over the monitors for a bit, taking in all the little changes in building types and weather. Screens that showed fields, buildings, static, mountains, and-Wait static? Her brows furled in confusion as she watched it. She rubbed her eyes to make sure she was looking at it correctly but saw no change. Slowly and quietly, she sat up in bed and unplugged herself. She walked across her room to look at it closer.

She had plenty of monitors in her room, and it was easy to lose track of all of them, but this one was exceptionally easy to miss. It was smaller than the others, granted not all of them were the same size as each other but still, and it was closer to a corner of the wall than in the center. The little monitor now that she was looking closer at it seemed to be a bit older as well. Perhaps it was the first one put in the room, nonetheless now that she had noticed it, she couldn't take her eyes off of it.

The little box flickered as it tried to find a connection, and she felt bad for it. She patted the top of it and was about to go back to bed when she saw something. For just a second while she had patted it, an image had flickered across the screen. It had looked like...a person? She patted the tv again and watched the same thing happen once more. Seeing this, she made a fist with her hand and brought it down a little harder. The screen flickered for a second before the image settled.

She couldn't hear anything, but at that moment she was more invested in what she could see. A group of people were on a stage and playing some, her brain scanned over them, instruments. The audience and the musicians all seemed so happy and thrilled. She looked over their smiling faces and found herself smiling as well. Wanting to know what was going on, she ran her hand over the monitor to find any buttons. Sure enough on its side were a few, and after looking over the buttons and pushing some of them, she figured out which ones did what. Not wanting to wake up her mother, she made sure the volume was just high enough for her to hear the music.

"I know you're Mickey 'cause I'm Momo, too, So I know what you're going' through. But there's no more Momo whenever I get close to you.."

With that, the song came to an end, and people started cheering. The band all smiled and came in for a group hug. The crowd continued to cheer as they set their instruments down and walked away. The stage seemed to be connected to another room as they moved to all sit down on a long couch. A man was clapping his hands as he sat behind his desk on stage as well.

"What a way to end the show tonight, huh folks, a live performance of the hit new song Mickey Momo! I'm John North, and this was Late Night Tremorton! Try not to shake your house down! Goodnight!"

With that, the band and the man waved as the camera was cut off, and credits began to play. XJ9, as quietly as possible, clapped for the people as the names rolled by and watched a commercial start. She knew that she should go to bed, really she did. She also knew that first thing tomorrow; she should probably show her mom the malfunctioning monitor. She would. She swore that she would. She would go to bed...right after seeing what was coming up next.

**Author's Note- Thanks for reading and please leave a review they really mean a lot to me. **


	17. Chapter 16

XJ9 yawned and rubbed her eyes a little as she sat on her bed. She had stayed up watching the screen longer than she should have, and even though the day was just starting, she was already a little tired. Oh, well. She shrugged it off; in all honesty, she didn't regret it. She had seen so much from it. She had watched another band play on another show, watched some news, and an early morning episode of a cartoon. Now, it may have sounded like much, but it was enough for her. Seeing all those different people and hearing all those different voices had made her quite happy.

She didn't understand all of what the newsman had to say or the pictures that were shown as well, but that was alright. She was sure she would get it all one day. She laid down and stretched out across her bed. Luckily, she didn't do a lot in the morning. She'd wake up, watch the screens, play with her duckie, or look at the alphabet book. For now, though, her eyes traced the cracks in the ceiling and watched the sunshine down through the windows. Everything was so peaceful, and she let her eyes close.

**BOOM. **A sudden loud sound exploded throughout the house, and with it, everything seemed to shake a little. She shot up out of her bed, startled at the sudden attack, and in a panic, ran out of her room to see what had happened. She was in such a rush that she forgot about the stairs and that she was on the second floor. What occurred next was her world turning around and around so fast that it took a second to tell when it all stopped.

Her eyes seemed to spin around and around as she slowly got her gathering together. She was lying on her stomach with her legs folded up and in the air over her back. Her left arm felt squished as she lay on it while the other was just spread out beside her. Her chin had taken most of the hits from the stairs where her head had hit, and it took her a second to realize that she was now at the bottom of the stairs. She didn't dare to move if she did well, maybe everything would start spinning again. So she just laid there uncomfortably to see what would happen. A minute later, she could hear quick steps and recognized them as her mom's. Sure enough, the woman showed up and quickly ran beside her.

"XJ9, Are you alright?"

She looked up from her spot on the ground and nodded yes.

"How did this-Did you fall down the stairs?"

She guessed that what happened to her still wasn't quite sure what had occurred, so she lazily shrugged.

"I am so sorry. I guess the explosion must have startled you."

As she said that, she began to help XJ9 sort herself out. She helped her roll herself over and sit up.

"Ugh, I'm just glad you're okay. I swear you must have hit every single stair on the way down. It sounded like someone had dropped fifteen bowling balls down the stairway."

She didn't know what a bowling ball was, but it must've been on point. She still wasn't sure what happened; she guessed falling down all those stairs must've scrambled her a little. She looked up at the stairway and shot it a slight glare, looking back at her mom she was met with a look of concern. She gave her a smile hoping to cheer her up and assure her that she was okay, but it didn't work. She tilted her head at the woman in confusion.

"Um, XJ9 can you hold up two figures, please?"

Okay, now she was more confused but went along with it. She raised her right arm up and raised two fingers.

"Very good, now can you do that with your other hand please?"

No problem, she raised two fingers on her left hand, and...and wait. Realizing that her hand wasn't up and in front of her, she looked down at it. She was utterly lost at what was happening. Two fingers were up on that hand, and she watched as she could still move her fingers and hand, but the rest of her arm was unresponsive. It didn't move or act as it should, and now she was very concerned.

"Don't panic; I'm sure it's just a simple fix. A wire probably came loose, and a servo probably lost power it's not-"

As her mom kept talking XJ9 slowly drowned her out. All she could do was stare at her moving fingers and unmoving arm. She wiggled them and realized she could only feel that area of her arm as everything else was numb. She watched her fingers wiggle and took it all in.

"XJ9, XJ9, Are you listening?"

She finally looked up from her fingers and looked at her mom with a blank look on her face. The house then shook from her blood-curdling scream.

**Author's Note- Thanks for reading! Sorry, this chapter is a little shorter than usual with everything going on I've been a bit preoccupied. If you're going to protest, please be safe and take a mask with you! Anyone, please leave a review. They really help and see you next Sunday! **


	18. Chapter 17

Eventually, her long scream died off, and XJ9 sat there quietly.

"Oh, okay. Glad you got that out of your system. How about we fix that arm now?"

She numbly nodded yes as she stared at her twitching fingers. Her mom took her hand, and she stood up to follow her. They slowly walked down the stairs, and she was led to a table. She sat on it and watched her mom grab some things from her desk. She looked back down at her fingers and made them wiggle again. It was so strange to watch. Wakeman walked back over with a scene in her hand, and some wires with clips.

She took a screwdriver and XJ9's hand. She watched her mom closely as she pried up some hidden latch, and suddenly she could see the inside of her arm. Her eyes widen at the sight of all the wires and servos in her arms. She had seen anything like it, and she immediately tried to poke her insides with her other hand. Wakeman quickly gave that hand a light slap and stopped her. She then started to do something important XJ9 guessed. She didn't understand what the wires from the screen were doing attaching to her arm. What all the fast-changing numbers were on the screen were lost to her too.

After a minute, she unattached the wires from hers and closed up the arm latch. XJ9 waved goodbye to her insides as it closed. Her mom opened another higher up port near her shoulder, and she could see her insides again. Wires were running through her arm there too, but it looked different from the other section of her arm she had seen seconds ago. She could see more structures connecting her arm and shoulder to her body, and it was just as strange as before. She tried to poke her insides again and got the same light slap to her hand. She frowned at her mom as she did the same thing with the wires she had done before.

"Just as I thought."

She removed the wires and put the screen down. As her mom grabbed a tool, she quickly poked the inside of her arm. It was weird to see, and she swore she could feel a tiny bit of electricity shoot through the wire when she poked it. Her mom can back over, and she pretended to totally not have poked anything. The next couple of minutes were spent with Wakeman fiddling with something in her shoulder and her curiously watching everything she was doing. Wakeman pulled the little tool out and closed the latch on her arm.

"Alright, try to see if you lift your arm now."

XJ9 nodded and raised that arm. A big smile spread across her face as she moved her arm around in every direction she could manage.

"Well, I'm glad that worked. Although, I'll have to look into more now. If you're fighting someone one and lose your arm's motion from a hit, that would be a serious problem."

She stopped moving her arm around at that. Fighting someone? Who was she going to be fighting? She knew her purpose had something to do with protecting the world apparently but was fighting part of that too? She looked over at her mom curiously as she typed something away on the screen. She swung her legs back and forth while sitting on the table, waiting for her mom to explain, but she didn't. After waiting for forever, honestly, it was about two minutes, she hopped off the table and walked around the lab a bit. There were colorful liquids in tubs of all shapes and sizes across desks. Lots of papers stacked up, and tools laying all around. Many screens on desks running all kinds of information. She soon found herself back there.

She stood over the strange table that she had first woken up on and looked over it. Two screens were attached to it and were the only ones off in the whole room. Checking her internal calendar, it had been just two weeks since she first woke up, and there still seemed to be so much to do. She hadn't been outside yet, she didn't count going to the place with all those Skyway Patrol people, and she still hadn't talked yet. Plus, if she was going to be fighting someone, she wasn't sure that she could. How did one fight?

Her brain did a quick search online, and she made a fist with each of her hands. Punching was the first thing to come up, and she hadn't done it before, but hopefully, she'd get a hang of it soon. She watched a quick video where a guy punched another guy and instantly stopped. She looked down at her hands after canceling her search. She didn't know what to think about the guy hitting the other guy.

It looked like he hurt him, and she thought about how she felt when falling down the stairs, according to quick search falling down the stairs hurt. And punching seemed to be hurting someone but on purpose. Was that right? Was it okay to hurt someone on purpose? She uncurled her fists at the thought and stared at her open palms. At this point, she really wished she could talk. At that moment, she decided to put fighting on hold. She learned how to speak first. She'd learn how to say mom, and then she'd ask her about going outside, and what was going on with Skyway Patrol.

She'd ask her about fighting and how to fight. Better yet, who exactly she had to fight soon. Maybe if she could talk then, then they could just talk instead. Her mind went to Lilan and Will, how everyone else with them was rude and stuck up, but they were nice. That could work too, right? If she was kind to the person she had to fight, then they could be friends. Right?

**Author's Note- Thanks for reading! Please leave a review and tell me what you think. See you all next Sunday!**


	19. Chapter 18

"Try to do it one more time."

XJ9 let out a little sigh as she felt the pieces in her arm shift again. The metal plates slid around, wires moved, and everything began to click into place until the basic blaster was revealed. Her mom stopped her timer and, with a smile, wrote down some times. It wasn't long since her mom had repaired her arm and insisted on making sure it worked perfectly. So, her test for the day involved her forming and deforming her basic blaster again and again.

This was her seventh time forming the weapon, and her hand trembled as it was completed. Yet, she couldn't help but feel a bit prideful of herself. The last time she had tried to form it, for that dumb Skyway Patrol test, it had taken every bit of her strength to get it to work none-the-less shoot it. Granted, she hadn't tried reshooting it, but making the gun was more natural than before, and she could do it faster. She honestly surprised herself when she formed it so quickly the first time for the test.

Her mom had given her some explanation of how since she was working now and her body was more used to moving, etc, etc. She didn't care to listen too in-depth to the explanation. All she cared about is that she could form the blaster fast, which made her mom's eyes light up at her progress. Speaking of which, at the signal to do so, she shifted the gun back into her arm then watched her mom write down the time.

"Wonderful work, XJ9. We'll end the test here, and try target practice tomorrow."

She nodded her head at Wakeman but was paying more attention to her now somewhat sore arm. She flexed it and felt a slight sting of electricity shoot through her limb. She hoped the feeling would go away soon, and she started to rub her arm without realizing it.

"How about we get you a treat?"

Her head and her pigtails shot up at the last word, and she nodded her head so fast and hard she swore it almost fell off. Wakeman just chuckled at XJ9's enthusiasm as it seemed the robot was always ready for a treat. XJ9 was practically jumping in place as she impatiently waited for her mom to set the clipboard down and put something away. Ugh, why was it taking so long by this time she could have already been chugging her treat.

After what felt like an eternity, they finally made it upstairs, and she plopped herself on the couch to wait for her treat. She excitedly kicked her legs back and forth as she sat on the sofa and listened to floor creak because of her movements. She suddenly wondered what would happen if she swung her legs as fast as possible, but before she could start, her mom came in with-What was that? XJ9 was expecting a bottle of the dark slick liquid that she thoroughly enjoyed, but instead, there was a can.

Her mom handed the strange can to her, and she could only stare at it. It was a dark blue can with a streak of purple across it with white letters that read OIL and a sprout sticking out. For a moment, she thought her mom had just grabbed the wrong thing, and in a second, she would hand her a bottle. She didn't. If anything, the lady just smiled more and watched her closer with a little cloth in her hand for some reason. She gave her a confused look, and the woman finally seemed to get the picture.

"XJ9, this is your treat."

She stared blankly at her.

"I know it looks different, but it's practically the same. You've progressed incredibly in your motor skills, so I don't think you'll need a bottle anymore."

Motor skills, what did her motors have to do with her losing her treat?

"It'll take time for you to get used to it, but it'll be fine."

Her mom started to tie the cloth around her neck, and she squirmed away. She didn't like this, not one little bit. She huffed and held the can out back to her mom.

"What?"

She held the can out towards her again and her head no with a scowl forming on her face.

"Do you not want it?"

She shook her head and waited for her mom to take it from her. Wakeman looked a bit surprised at this and gently took it back. This made XJ9 raise an eyebrow, why was she confused? This wasn't the right treat, and she didn't want anything to do with it, what was so confusing about that?

"...Is this cause it's not in a bottle?"

She shook her head, yes, whatever was in the bottle was good, unlike this thing.

"Oh my god, XJ9, it's the same drink. The only difference is instead of pouring into a bottle for you; I'm giving it to you in its original container."

She crossed her arms and looked away from her mom and the can. She was wrong. It wasn't just like the bottle, and she would patiently wait until she got it.

"This is your last chance, either you take the can or no treat at all."

She only huffed at her mom's words. No, she didn't want anything to do with that thing and would wait for as long as it took.

"Fine then."

Wakeman walked off and left her sitting there. When her mom came back, she didn't have a bottle, she sat down beside her and started reading the paper as usual. Now, XJ9 admitted that this surprised her, but she tried not to let it show. She was going to get her bottle, and she could wait until the end of time if she had too. Okay, maybe not to the end of time, she was very impatient. Maybe till the next test tomorrow, where she could get a tasty treat then.

**Author's Note- Thanks for reading and please leave a review! Things are going to start picking up speed now as XJ9 is starting to get her stubborn streak and has already started questioning things. See you next Sunday!**


	20. Chapter 19

She turned and tossed in her sleep before she woke up from a little sound, and sleepily looked around. XJ9's eyes traced the crackled ceiling and then the stars for a minute before she heard it again. What was that? She slowly sat up and looked around the room cautiously. The green glow of the monitors gave everything an eerie vibe as the little flicker of the sound came back. She pulled her covers up and peeked over the edges of them as she kept looking.

She could hear it, and she swore she could, the sound of a man's voice. A little sound of static filled the room, and with it came a whisper of words to quiet for her to hear. XJ9 pulled the covers over her head and quickly laid back down, trying to hide from whoever was talking. She searched the internet for information, but it kept coming up with the results of things called 'ghosts.' She hoped it wasn't a ghost; the images that came up with it were strange and scary.

The static came back and the voice with it, yet she still couldn't make out its words. She didn't like this, no not one bit, and added sounds in the night to her list of dislikes. Something wormed around her chest, and the feeling made her shake. Her mind claimed it was something called 'fear,' and she added that feeling to her list of dislikes as well—what a bad night. The voice came back again with its words being cut off, and that scared her even more.

Yet, she pulled the cover over a little enough for her to peek out of her hiding place and look around. She couldn't see whoever was talking, and the thought of it being a ghost unnerved her more. Another thought popped into her head, was this the person? The person who she had to fight and were they going to fight now? If she had guts, they would've been turning now in her stomach as she whined and pulled the covers back over her eyes.

She wasn't ready; really, she wasn't. She didn't know how to fight, and forget fighting someone she couldn't see. She searched the internet again for how to fight ghosts, but the results were all over the place, and there seemed to be nothing concrete to go off of. She let a whine; she guessed she'd be the first person to know. Her hands were shaking as she unplugged herself from her charger and slowly sat up. XJ9 begrudgingly pulled the covers off of her and stood up from her bed.

The voice and static whispered to her, and it made her eyes shoot all around the room, looking for the source of it. Now, she wished she could talk. Then, maybe she and the ghost could talk all this out, and if that didn't work, she could call for help. Even though she was scared, she slowly followed the sound of the voice until she walked towards a familiar corner, and a familiar old monitor was flickering. Wait.

The same old monitor from before was flickering, and now that was closer to it, she could hear the occasional sound of static and a voice from it. Oh, she guessed she must have the volume on when she went back to sleep last night. All of a sudden, she felt quite ridiculous, and her face began to heat up with a blue blush. She sheepishly chuckled to herself and started to gently hit the monitor a little to try to get a signal. After a hit or two, the screen stabilized and revealed two people sitting together. It was sort of a talk show, and while she would've been fine turning it off and going back to bed, one of the people caught her eye.

She turned up the volume slightly to hear it better and sat down in front of the monitor to watch it. The man sitting in the guest chair was dressed in a Skyway Patrol uniform and was chatting with the man.

"Well, it's also time to wrap things up, but I think we have time for two or three more quick questions if that's fine with you, sir."

"Absolutely."

"People around the world are asking about the current status of the Cluster war. It's been going on for seventy years now, and we want to know your thoughts on it."

"It's all very complicated, but I wouldn't consider it all a war. It's true we still have run-ins with the Cluster, and we have to defend ourselves from them, but we no longer have to constantly stay on the front lines or prepare to arm ourselves for them, so I considered the war to be done."

"Good to hear, and that leads perfectly into our next question. One of Skyway Patrol's greatest creations during Space and Cluster war was the PeaceKeeper. At least, that's it's most commonly referred to name for the public, and it was a giant robot that could destroy all weapons. Since the bot led to our peace, people are wondering where this mighty bot is and if it'll be used again in the future."

"Sadly, I can not disclose information on the Peace Keeper's whereabouts, but I can say it will not be used ever again."

"Can you maybe elaborate for us on that?"

"It did bring us for a while, but afterwards, we thought it was best to step away from the robotics area."

"I see, I see, and one last quick-fire question. Are there any plans in Skyway Patrol's future to create a new peace bringing machine?"

"No, Skyway Patrol has always believed in manpower and will, and I don't think we'll be investing in any other robot. If another peacekeeper is to happen, it won't be from us."

"That's all the time we have for today, folks. Skyway Patrol will celebrate its seventeenth anniversary on the thirtieth, so make sure to break out the fireworks and patriotism. It's been a pleasure having you here, sir."

"The pleasure's mine."

As the show's credit music played and hands were shaken XJ9 watched the tv in fascination. Skyway Patrol had been around for some time, alright, and new questions filled her head. But none were more interesting to her than one. What was a robot?

**Author's Note- Things are really picking up now. Please leave a review, they really do help, and thanks for reading! Happy Father's Day to everyone and I'll see you all next Sunday.**


	21. Chapter 20

XJ9 had fallen into a fitful sleep with all the questions rolling around in her mind. The most prominent question being, 'What was a robot?' When she woke up in the morning, her thoughts rattled around in her mind as she got up out of bed and stretched. She walked around her room, looking over all the glowing screens with all the people and their little homes spread out across them. She shook her head and tried not to think much about it. She didn't want to think about it for some reason as it made something in her chest twist and hurt.

She opted instead to watch a little old lady slowly cross the street. The woman slowly took a step forward and picked up her cane as well. Step by step, she slowly moved on, and XJ9 found that twisty thing in her chest hurt a little again. It twisted painfully when the poor woman dropped her purse, and she almost fell trying to pick it up. Every part of her suddenly wanted to dash out of the house and down the road to wherever this old lady was. She would carry the woman's purse and help her cross the street.

Then the little lady wouldn't be trudging along so slowly and sadly. XJ9 thought about her mom for a moment and imagined her being old, she didn't know how old her mom was, and the thought made her sad. Hopefully, whatever fight thing she had to do would be over by then, and she could help her mom cross the street. Yes, yes, she would. She would go outside and go for a nice walk and help every little old lady cross the road.

The twisting in her chest stopped at that thought, and as the old lady reached the other side. She waved goodbye to the woman as she walked out of the vision of the screen. If she didn't want to go outside before, XJ9 really wanted to go out now. She wasn't entirely sure why she suddenly had a giant urge to help people, but now she was excited to do so. She looked over the other screens and watched more people walk across different streets.

All of the people were so different in how they did so. A mom held her kids' hands as they walked across one, while a teenager with headphones banged his head to the music and crossed with them. On another street, two older people crossed together and an ice cream truck, as her brain identified it as, was parked on the side and giving sweet treats to the children. A street where a policeman was riding his horse on, a road where kids were playing hockey on the concrete, and a place where motorcyclists raced down the street.

She smiled at all the people and how all of them went about their day differently. She couldn't wait to join them out there, oh she could already imagine all the fun they would have together. Hockey looked fun, and the ice cream must've been good as the children all looked so, please. She wondered if they had ice cream in their house. With an ice cream hunt in her mid, XJ9 left her room running and quickly skidded to a stop. She carefully and slowly made her way down the stairs before taking off again towards the kitchen.

She had been in there once and knew from her learning flashcards that the kitchen was supposed to have food. So she ran in there and looked all around in the cupboards and everywhere else. Eventually, she opened the fridge and looked over all of the food. She shook a jar of pickles while she was in there, and giddy watched them all float around in the liquid. She stuffed it back in there after a few minutes and then opened the freezer.

The freezer was colder than the fridge, that's what she noticed immediately. There were layers of thin ice and so many cool things inside. She fumbled around with a cold container of something and enjoyed watching the frost melt off of it in her hands. Needless to say, when Wakeman came down to the kitchen to have some coffee and saw that everything in the freezer had melted because a particular little bot liked the frost, she wasn't very amused.

**Author's Note- Sorry this chapter isn't that long and it was posted later on Sunday than usual. I have a job now and today I had a morning to the afternoon shift. Thanks for reading and please leave a review they're really good for keeping my motivation up. **


	22. Chapter 21

XJ9 walked around her room, nervously circling from her bed to the door and back. A few minutes ago, her mom had told her to go to her room, and while she would have preferred to keep playing with the freezer, the tone in the woman's voice left no room to argue. As she paced around and around, her mind was running in an endless loop of questions. What had she done wrong? Was she in trouble for whatever it was she did? Was her mom mad at her now? The last question hurt her bit, and she could feel her tear ducts start to fill up to cry.

She walked around for what felt like too long before flopping on her bed. It made a horrible creaking sound at the sudden impact of her weight, and she hoped she hadn't messed it up too. She rolled around on her bed a little and listened to the boards of it creak. She rolled around a little more before a strange high pitched sound nearby. She sat up and looked over at the old monitor in the back, expecting it to be on. It wasn't, and if she had a heart, it would've stopped. No, no, she was just hearing things.

She could recall getting so distressed about the monitor that one night and didn't want to get worked up again. So she rolled around some more to hear a high pitch sound coming from somewhere nearby again. She froze for a moment and shifted a little to which the high squeak responded. Wait, she bounced a little on her bed and listened to the creaking of the boards and the squeal that followed it.

Okay, no problem. XJ9 knew where it was coming from. It was coming from under her bed. She felt a sense of pride well up in her chest at the thought that she had figured out the mystery, but it was quickly drowned out by dread. Something was under her bed. Her brain promptly started to bring up searches for things under the bed. Some people had shelves, boxes, monsters, g-monsters. Monsters lived under people's beds; it seemed, and sure enough, the images that her search started to pull up for them unsettled her a little. Monsters weren't though, yeah, totally not real the internet people said so. Well, some did say so, but that wasn't the point.

Something was under her bed, and whatever it was she was going to have to deal with it. She took a deep breath that she didn't need and peeked over the edge of her bed. She carefully grabbed the side of the blanket and quickly yanked it up. She couldn't see anything from where she was, and it was then that she noticed how dark it seemed under her bed. She nervously smiled; after all, it wasn't a big deal, no, not one at all. She slowly and grudgingly moved closer to the edge of the bed and lowered her head down to look into the darkness.

She had to make herself open her eyes, and she looked under it. Suddenly, all the fear was gone, and she was happily surprised. The loud shrieking sound of under the bed was just her poor little duckie being squished. She quickly reached for it, but by being on the edge of the bed and making a sudden movement, she tumbled over the edge. She landed flat on the back and laid still for a second before shaking off the shock. She rolled over onto her gut and got her duckie out from under her bed. She happily hugged the duck to her chest and enjoyed the moment. Then the door to her room was thrown open.

"XJ9, Are you alright?"

Her mom stood in the doorway, clearly panicking a little while her eyes scanned all over the place for the kid. XJ9 sat up from the floor and, with wide eyes, looked at her mom before looking all over the room as fast as possible for whatever her mom was looking for. The woman let out a breath of relief before walking over towards her bed.

"What were you doing?"

With no other way to answer, XJ9 raised up the duck, squeaked it, and smiled.

"If you're going to play with your duck, please be a bit more careful, the freezers already needs to be fixed, and I rather not have to fix the floor too from you falling through it."

The woman said it all in an exasperated tone to which XJ9 tilted her head down. Had she done something wrong again? What did she do that was bad? Was everything she was doing wrong? A few tears ran down her cheeks, and she rubbed them away with her hand. Another warm hand took hers away from her face and started wiping away her tears with a tissue.

"I'm sorry I shouldn't be upset with you about this. You probably have no idea about what you did."

She shook her head yes but stopped to let her mom rub her head.

"It's alright, now. I should be trying to be more patient with you, even if you cost me a bit on some food."

Wakeman stopped rubbing her head, stood up, and gestured for her to follow her.

"Come along, XJ9. I'm going to teach you about hot, cold, and what happens when different things like that meet."

The robot stood up and followed her mom out the door with her duckie in hand.

**Author's Note- Thanks for reading and sorry that this update was posted late at night. I'm currently very busy with my job and haven't had time to work on things. I hope you all had a great 4th of July and I'll see you all next Sunday. Please leave a review they really help.**


	23. Chapter 22

She looked at the little light gun in her hand and fiddled with the trigger. After learning about things that needed to stay cold and things that didn't, her mom had decided it was time for a test. So XJ9 found herself holding a simple gun that was black and green colored. Her mom was currently setting up some targets, and although she had been told the gun only shot out a little light, she was wary of it. Without even meaning to, she shifted her left arm into the simple blaster and jumped back a little when realizing it.

Both of them were guns and looked very different, but the real difference to her was that trigger. She could recall the pressure that had built up in her arm before and how the power of the shot had flung her arm back—the burned crisp look on the target and the smell of smoke that came from it. Just by thinking about the burned target made her body start to build up energy, and not wanting to set off the blaster, she quickly shifted it back into her arm. She flexed her hand a little trying to shake off the little bit of stiffness left over from it.

"XJ9, are you ready to begin?"

She snapped out of her thoughts and looked up at where her mom was standing. The wall she stood in front of had three little targets stuck to it, and each target had a small bulb of some sort in the centerpiece.

"For this test, we'll be looking at your reaction and accuracy."

Wakeman pressed a button on a remote, and one of the target's centers lit up in a green light.

When you see a target little up, you are to shoot it as fast as possible. You should aim to hit the center as much as possible, but considering the lights will only be on for a few seconds at a time, and this is your first time with something like this, I would just try to hit it as many as possible."

She shook her head to let her know she understood.

"Good, now come stand over here."

Her mom led her to the other side of the room, making the targets even smaller and harder to hit.

"Are you ready, XJ9?"

She raised her arm and felt her trigger finger become twitchy as her eyes began to center in on the targets. She nodded yes as her face grew grave and focused.

"Three...Two...One...Go!"

All of the targets began to flash one light immediately being followed by another. XJ9's scanners began to crack out every single coordinate possible, and her arm reacted as fast as it could to match itself with the pace. Her trigger finger clicked at an incredibly fast pace to the point. It just seemed to be a blur as clicked to shoot, adjust, then clicked again. The next minute was a blur to her as suddenly there was nothing out there but the targets. Nothing exists except the things that she was shoot, to shoot and take out. When the lights stopped flashing, her mind didn't stop racing as her scanners ran over them. She only stopped staring at the targets when her mom's voice snapped her out of it.

"I'm going to look over the data now. You can stay here if you like or go up to your room."

XJ9 nodded in response and watched her mom turn to a screen. It was then she realized that she was shaking. Not her whole body or anything, but her hand was buzzing in a way. She raised it still with a death grip on the gun. Her finger was twitching around the trigger, and the buzz running from her arm to her head was somehow exciting and numbing at the same time. Her hand trembled harshly, and her first thought was that it was just her body not being used to it like the other time she had a weapon.

But as she watched it and felt that electricity flow, the back of mind knew this was something different. The feeling of it all was so different from the first time she shot anything. Something deep inside her wanted to pull that trigger again, and never stop. There was nothing else around her to shoot, but she kept pulling that trigger repeatedly. She reasoned it was alright to do so. It wasn't like she was doing anything wrong, right? Yet, the more she pulled the trigger and didn't hit anything around her, the more irritated she became, and the buzzy feeling faded away. She set the gun down and left the lab. She walked up the stairs, irritated that the test was done.

**Author's Note- Sorry this chapter is a day late, I've been pretty busy with work lately. Anyway, I'm happy to finally be getting into deeper subjects as XJ9 is also a fighting robot so this aspect of her will start becoming more involved. Please, leave a review they really help, and thanks for reading!**


	24. Chapter 23

XJ9 flexed her fingers once more and could imagine the gun in her hands. Just thinking about it all made her trigger finger twitch. Her hand was practically black and green in the dark of the room and the monitor's soft glow. The glitchy old thing was playing a cartoon to fill in runtime for the early hours. She didn't know much about the show as she hadn't been paying attention to it, but she was grateful for it being on. Even though her eyes and thoughts were focused on her gun hand, she liked the sound of the character's voices.

It was soothing in a way to hear a little bit of sound, and another's voice in the background. It made her feel like she wasn't the only one there really. Yes, she knew her mom was somewhere in the house, either asleep or working on something, but hearing another voice besides hers was nice. She looked up and all around the room for a moment. She loved the monitors really, they showed her such fascinating places outside, but she couldn't help but want not only to see them but hear them. Would every single city sound the same? Did they all have the same noises and voices echoing and calling out across their streets?

Everyone must have their own voice, but when grouped altogether, did all become nothing but one big voice? She scratched her head at her train of thought, before stopping lowering her hand down to her neck and mouth. Would her voice be swallowed up into the swarm of everyone else's' as well? She frowned. Yeah, right, as if she'd ever had a voice at this rate. The only sound that croaked out of her throat was that, a croak.

Strange mangled sounds while she cried where the only sounds that she seemed to have. Having a voice and talking just seemed so far away at the moment. If only it were as easy as everything else. As easy as pulling the trigger had been. Her finger twitched in a way that was growing familiar now. XJ9 stared back down at her hands and fell into another train of thoughts.

Why couldn't she stop thinking about the gun? Why did her hand suddenly seem to demand to be armed and ready at a moment's notice? This hadn't happened before, so why was it happening now? Something deep in her programming seemed to be crawling slowly up to the front of thoughts, and she wasn't sure what it was. Some part of her mind that wanted to shoot the gun and hit every target in her path. It wasn't a bad feeling, she guessed, but she still wanted to know why she felt it.

Her brain started searching with the keyword gun, and what came with it was a mixed bag of facts and opinions. She wasn't quite sure how to go about it, so she looked at more keywords tied to it. One particular word set off the back part of her brain, and she stopped on it. 'Violence,' now why was that word important to her? She searched for the definition—violence_\- behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something. _

It was then she realized she had seen that word once before as it was used in the definition of 'fight.' 'Fight' was the thing she had to do with the mysterious person one day. Yet, she didn't quite understand, though. The guns she had were only for targets and such, not for fighting. She had just found a bad search. A fight someone occurring to the videos looked terrible, and violence seemed terrible, but there was no harm with shooting targets. After all, she didn't want to shoot anything but her target, so what else could there be to hit?

She would've debated it more, but was stopped by a big yawn. She supposed it was about time she went back to bed. She bopped the monitor on the top of it and let it go back to static before trudging on to her bed. She flopped on down to it and plugged in her charger again. As her eyes started to dim and anything slowly grew dark, she took one more glance over all the screens. All the places and different people filled her vision. She wished she could hear their chatter even if she didn't think she'd ever been apart. Who knows maybe could amaze them with her target shooting abilities. Yeah, perhaps they would be so impressed with her skills that they would forget about her not being able to talk. With that last thought, XJ9 fell asleep and hoped to shoot targets the next day.

**Author's Note- Thank you for reading! Sorry, this chapter is a bit short. Please leave a review they really help me keep writing. **


	25. Chapter 24

All was quiet in the house except for the radio, and even so it seemed to be whispering her a song instead of singing it. XJ9 was carefully tuning into the little bit of it she could hear as she boredly swung her legs back and forth. She was currently sitting in a chair in the lab and waiting on her mom to finish reading the test. Sadly, it didn't seem like she would be shooting anything today. She grumbled to herself and kicked her legs out a little harder.

"XJ9, today we'll be working on your scanners again."

Wakeman set down a paper with a picture of a city, and XJ9 immediately knew that it was like the test from before. Sure, enough, she was right. Wakeman held up cards again, and it was her job to locate them on the picture as fast as possible. Granted, she would admit the searching test was a little fun, but it did little to lighten her mood. When the test was over, and her mom wrote things down, she tried her best to cheer up. She was sure these other tests were important and all, but she still really wished she could've had another shooting test today. Her legs swung slower and slower until they stopped, and without even realizing it, her pigtails began to droop.

"Are you alright?"

She hadn't realized that she had been staring at her feet for a few minutes now or that the sound of her mom's pencil on the paper had stopped. The radio echoed quietly in the room. She looked up from the ground at her mom and opened her mouth but only managed to spit out a strangled cry like sound. She quickly slapped her hand over her mouth, and her cheeks flushed blue. As the new feeling of embarrassment washed over her, she quickly looked away from her mom's eyes.

"Oh, don't be upset about not being able to talk, yet these things take time, and I'm sure soon, with enough practice, you'll be speaking in no time."

She smiled a little at that, but it didn't reach her eyes, and it fell after the moment. Wakeman looked concerned at that, but quickly smiled again and set her things down to grab something,

"Don't worry, I have just the thing to cheer you up."

XJ9 raised her eyebrow at that and watched her mom get something. Unless she was about to do some practice shooting or suddenly talk, she didn't think anything could brighten her mood.

"How about a treat?"

Nevermind, she was wrong. There was something that could cheer her up. She quickly and harshly shook her head, yes.

"Easy now, you'll shake your head off."

She stopped nodding but practically buzzed in her seat. Oh, boy, it had been too long since she had a treat. She couldn't wait. Oh...boy. Her excitement plummeted as her mom handed her the strange can thing with the nozzle on it from before. Scratch that, her mom was wrong; nothing could cheer her up now. Wakeman noticed the deadpanned expression on the robot's face and gave her a look as well.

"Come now, XJ9. It's literally the same treat you've enjoyed before. The only difference is that it's not in a bottle."

The robot just crossed her arms and turned away from her mom in a huff. The dumb can had only made her feel worse.

"If you would just try it, you would see it was the same. Here, I'll even open it for you."

Wakeman cracked the can open, and the little pop sound made XJ9's eyes snap to it. She liked the tiny little snap but attempted to hide it. She wasn't going to like this treat intruder no, not one bit.

"Try it. I swear you'll love it."

Her arms were still crossed, and she still didn't like it, but she did turn back towards her mom. The woman's pleading and hopefully smile were enough to do it. She wasn't happy, no, not one bit, but she decided to go ahead and get it over with. Maybe once her mom saw that she didn't like it, she would go back to getting the nice bottles. She slowly took the can from her mom's hands, and grumpily looked over it.

What exactly was she supposed to do with it? She starred at it, back towards her mom, then towards the drink, and repeated this multiple times before her mom snapped her out of it. Wakeman put her hand on XJ9's hand that was holding the can and gently guided her hand up to her face. She glared at the nozzle but put her mouth on it, guessing that is what she was supposed to do. Then her mom titled the can in her hand a little, and the oil flowed into her mouth. Her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates at the surprise. It was the stuff from the bottle….IT WAS THE SAME GOOD STUFF FROM THE BOTTLE!

In her rush to drink more, she tilted it back, and her mom was powerless to stop her. All of the oil poured into her mouth and gushed out of her metal cheeks. It ran out of her like a dark waterfall and covered her all over. Even with it all covering her, XJ9 made sure to swallow her mouthful of oil before shrieking in surprise.

**Author's Note- Thanks for reading! The story will now be updating on Sundays or Mondays. Because work schedules are crazy sometimes. Anyway, please leave a review they really help and encourage me to keep writing. **


	26. Chapter 25

The sun was setting and laid out a beautiful shade of orange lighting as it went. XJ9 sat on her bed and watched as her colors changed in the light from. The room warmly glowed, and even the harsh glares from the monitors seemed to be tamed by it. Little specks of dust floated in the air, and somehow it all just made the mood more peaceful to her. She reached her hand out slowly to bat at the specks and watch them swirl around her hand. She did it a few more times but stopped when she thought she had distributed them enough.

The orange glow slowly shifted to pink before it into a purple before becoming a dark blue. The blue was quickly drowned out by black, but the black sky was speckled by glowing white stars. The random little dots that seemed to float in the pitch dark sky reminded her of the dust in the orange glow. The monitors' brightness grew green and harsh again as it lit up her darkroom. The orange was gone from her body, and she glowed a green and eerie look.

The change from the natural orange to the manufactured green was more than just a simple color change. Her mood shifted with tones. In the orange light, she found herself much more relaxed and slow, while the shift to the green made her feel the electricity buzz in her circuits. The buzz wound her up in a way, and the green shades reminded her only of the gun light gun she had used before.

XJ9 watched her arm shift to the blaster form and watched it also glow in the green light. Thoughts of flashing target colors lined up with the flashing changes of the monitors' pictures. Pictures of people's smiling faces and them going about their daily lives. The dark cities far away or maybe nearby buzzed with the same electrical glow as she did.

It was strange. How she felt seemed to be tightly tied with those simple colors and glows...or maybe it was just the glow part. She could recall flashing lights and colors as clicks of tools and gadgets filled the very back of her mind. Thoughts or sounds from a memory she didn't quite experience but swore she had heard before. The distant sounds reminded her of the ones she'd hear coming from her mom's lab. The green glow off her metal arm and weapon drew her eyes to it. Her mother's arm wasn't as pale or as cold as hers was it now?

She could vaguely recall seeing her mom out of the corner of her eye when shooting the targets. The green glow when on her was bright or taken in green. Now that she was thinking more about it, many things were different between them. Her mom's skin was different from hers, which was pure white. Her mom's hair was white and stuck out like her pigtails, but it wasn't solid or hard like hers. Her mom wasn't cold, solid, or hard like she was, and she'd never seen the woman bend a blaster out of her arm.

XJ9 shifted the blaster back into her arm and stared down at her hands. Her green, glowing hands that felt like the inside of the freezer. Yes, yes, they were very different indeed. She rubbed her head in confusion at the realization. Reaching over onto the little table beside her bed, she grabbed her letter book and flipped over the letter M's page. The picture of the mom and her child hugging started back at her.

Both of them had the same skin color and the same hair color. XJ9 reached up and pulled one of her pigtails down to make sure it was blue and not white like her mom's. This was strange, very strange. A sinking feeling started to build in her gut as she thought about how different they were. Suddenly she desperately scanned the page for any differences between the mom and child.

Well, they both didn't dress the same it seemed, her and her mom didn't dress alike too. (For starters her mom wore clothes and she didn't so she guessed that played a big role in it.) The two of them in the drawing were different heights, just like her and her mom, she just happened to be taller than her mother. She looked for any other differences between the parent and child and noticed their eyes' were different colors. If their eyes could be different colors, then surely their hair and skin could be too.

She nodded to herself, and the sinking feeling lightened up a little. Suddenly another thought popped into her head, and the feel sunk deeper. She stopped nodding and stared at the picture of the family once more for a minute. She put her hand over their smiling faces and felt the crease of the tape against her fingertips. She carefully and slowly began to turn the pages to make sure she didn't rip them again.

XJ9 turned to the section for the letter 'R' and looked down the list of words. Sure, enough there, it was the name that all those mean people called her. The word 'robot' stood out to her, and she glared at it. Her angry eyes moved off of it and onto the picture that was beside it. The robot was gray, bulky, and very square. It was covered in dials and lights with little claws for hands. She couldn't believe it. Really, she couldn't.

How dare they call her a robot! She closed her book and laid back on her bed with a huff. She wasn't sharp and weird looking with claws for hands. No way! She looked just like them, oh those officers were a bunch of meanies. She angrily kicked around on her bed in a mini tantrum of sorts before calming down a few minutes later. Despite seeing what a robot looked like and not liking what they called her, she did feel a little better now. Sure, she and her mom didn't look the same or were very similar, but she was still her mom. They were just like the changes in the glow really, yeah, that was it. There was nothing else different.

**Author's Note- Thank you for reading and please leave a review. I know it may not seem very important but it helps me keep writing this story. **


	27. Update Announcement

Hi, everyone. I know that I haven't been updating lately and I'm sorry about that. Honestly, I feel pretty bad about this story's update schedule in total. For all of my last fanfics, I've kept them on time and continuously updated. However, this sadly hasn't been going on with this fanfic. Over time my passion for it has started to burn out, and along with my job and my college semester starting, I haven't had much time to work on it.

I'm sorry about this. Now, I'm not putting the story on hiatus or canceling it or anything. Instead, updates are just going to be coming out whenever I can work on them. I know we're not the most active fan base on, but I do know how great it feels to see that ordinarily, quiet fanfic list gets something added to it. So, I'll try not to let you down.

Special thanks to the people who commented on this story. Really, the ones I got pushed me to write even when I didn't feel like it. Thank you. Hope to see you soon, readers.


	28. Chapter 26

XJ9 didn't like Skyway Patrol. She felt like she hadn't thought that enough, and she swore that as soon as she could talk, she was going to let those guys have it. It all started normal enough that morning for XJ9. Her alarm had gone off, she slapped the clock's button, and then everything went nuts. Next thing she knew, she could hear the door being banged on, and the familiar yells of those gruff officers immediately put her in a sour mood.

She sunk back down into her bed and pulled her blanket over her head, and wished for the loud noise to stop. Eventually, the familiar sound of the door opening, and her mother's voice began to mix with the loud officers. She knew that she should get up and help her mom deal with whatever was going on down there, but she was far too comfy. She let out a loud yawn, and her eyelids were heavy, she really shouldn't have stayed up that late debating everything.

Now that she was thinking about last night, though, she looked out the window at the blue sky that was starting to lose its orange tint. Pretty is the first word that came to her mind, and she didn't bother looking it up to know that the word must be right. Another yawn slipped out of her mouth, and she rubbed her eyes tiredly. She should get up, but lying there for just a few more minutes couldn't hurt.

She drifted off and found herself in a world of darkness where the thing that tied her back to the real world was the occasionally blurry voice she could hear from downstairs. Even in her knocked out state, she could still make the one female voice amongst them. The blurry voices, even the ones that weren't her mom, gave her some comfort. After all, it was nice to know someone was there.

Sadly, the peace came to a crashing halt when the door to her room was kicked open. She shot up straight in bed with exhaustedly alert eyes. A familiar-looking jerk strolled into her room and took her just a second to realize who it was. The cadet from before that had a fit about her going to her room was waltzing around. Her eyes narrowed, and she let out a noise eerily similar to a grumble. Oh, great. What was he going to yell about this time? He pointed at her and straightened up his back to make him seem more intimidating.

"You robot!"

Again, with the name-calling, huh.

"Get up and come with me."

She blinked and stared at him with no emotion on her face, before calming laying back down in her bed and pulling up her blanket to snuggle with it. She rolled onto her side so she'd be facing away from him and closed her eyes. She could hear him gasp and mumble out some aggravated words that her mind for some reason, censored.

"Robot, I demand you listen to me."

"Leave XJ9, alone."

The sound of her mother's sound made her pigtails stand up little, and she peeked over her shoulder to look at what was happening. The two people glared at each other for a moment, before the cadet got worked up again.

"Wakeman, you're robot isn't listening."

"If anyone isn't listening here, it's you."

He grinned his teeth and clenched his fist before taking a deep breath and calming himself as much as he could.

"Look, I just want this to go as smoothly as possible."

"It would have gone smoothly if the General would've given me a better heads up then just sending you people to barge in."

"You were told that we would be doing another check up on the XJ. We're simply doing our job, and you should've been notified."

"Well, I was not, and even if I had been, there is no reason for you to be barging into my home like this."

"You weren't-HAROLD!"

With that loud yell, he quickly walked out of the room to start chewing someone out. She mom rolled her eyes, and XJ9 rolled over in bed to look at her.

"Good morning, XJ9."

A loud yell from the man rang out.

"Perhaps, it's just a morning now."

She just yawned in response and nuzzled into her pillow.

"Come on, get up, and let's start the day. I have a feeling that those 'charming' cadets have some plans for us."

XJ9 scowled at the thought of whatever she was going to have to do. Her mom chuckled at her expression, and that made her smile a little. Still, she really didn't want to get out of bed. She pulled her blanket up more til covered half of her face and tried to snuggle into the bed more.

"XJ9, come on, get up."

She slowly shook her head no as she wasn't sure what her mom's reaction would be. Her mom raised an eyebrow at her and looked over her for a second.

"You want to stay in bed?"

She fidgeted under her mom's gaze and nodded, yes.

"Not even talking yet and you're already acting like a teenager."

She wasn't sure exactly what her mom was talking about but decided not to question it. She didn't feel like debating more stuff.

"Either you're already picking up those things, or it's just your battery issues."

She shrugged as a loud crashing sound was heard from downstairs.

"Those hooligans are going to rip our house apart. Fine, you can stay in bed for a little bit longer, but we are not making a habit out of this."

Her mother waved her finger at her, and she nodded in return with the sweetest look she could manage in her eyes. With that, her mom left to deal with the cadets and shut the door behind her. XJ9 fell asleep with a little smile on her face as, for some reason, the fact her mom had said it was 'our home' made her feel warm inside.

**Author's Note- Yay, Chapter time! Thank you for reading and please leave a review. **


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